


i have always confused desire with apocalypse

by Lirazel



Category: Infinite (Band), K-POP RPF, K-pop, Korean Pop, Kpop-Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Dystopia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-19
Updated: 2013-06-19
Packaged: 2017-12-15 12:01:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 56,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/849333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirazel/pseuds/Lirazel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Sungyeol, variety is the only real joy in life. At least until he meets the boy. [Dystopian AU]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: This world is built around forced prostitution, so please don’t read it if that will upset you. The sex portrayed ‘onscreen’ is pretty enjoyable for all parties involved, but the backdrop is a world wherein people don’t have choices, and I want to be clear about that upfront.

_We met over a small_  
 _earthquake. Now, my knees_

_shake whenever_  
 _you come around_

_and I’ve noticed your hand_  
has a slight tremor.

\- “I Have Always Confused Desire With Apocalypse” by Daphne Gottlieb

\--

Sungjong is fascinated by Sungyeol’s preferences. Or lack thereof.

“Do you know how few people there are like you? Equally attracted to both sexes? With no preference whatsoever? It’s a very small percentage of the population, hyung. You’re the only one I know.”

Sungjong is an anthropologist, so of course he’s interested in things like that, especially considering he’s only attracted to women. Sungyeol himself doesn’t care. He likes sex, he likes beautiful people, why should he care what the beautiful person he’s touching has between their legs? People of any gender can having amazing sex if they’re skilled enough, and everyone (every servicer) Sungyeol has ever been with has been. Besides, there are sexy things about both sets of genitals: the way someone with a penis can’t hide their desire, the way the hardening gives them away: that’s sexy. Sexy, too, is the slickness that sneaks up on you with a vagina, a more subtle evidence of yearning but undeniable all the same. What’s sexiest of all is that just because two people have the same primary and secondary sex characteristics doesn’t mean that they have anything else in common when it comes to sex—each person is different and the differences between individuals are greater by far than the differences between genders. Sungyeol knows from experience.

Sungyeol likes variety, not because he gets tired of people quickly but because every single person is different in bed and he’s always excited to discover anything new. Sungjong is monogamous, the pretty girl he picked—long hair and longer limbs, a face like a princess’s—promoted out of the pool and installed as Sungjong’s personal concubine. It’s rare, getting to keep a servicer all to yourself like that, and Sungyeol is still shocked that Sungjong even had the balls to file the request, much less that the panel actually approved it. But then, Sungjong is the smartest person Sungyeol knows (and, since he’s in the science division, that’s saying something) and extremely good at his job—they’ll probably do anything to keep him happy, so he got the girl he chose. She’ll stay with him till one of them dies, and Sungjong is working on paperwork make sure she won’t have to go to one of the departments for the prostitutes after they age out—or, worse still, become the subject of someone’s fetish. 

It’s a rare thing, too, a professional being that attached to a servicer, even if the servicer is installed permanently, but Sungjong is a rare person. “If I die first, I want Minha to stay in my apartment,” Sungjong says seriously one day over lunch. “Promise me you’ll visit her, okay, hyung?” Sungyeol likes Minha and he always feels a bit sorry for her, since she can’t leave Sungjong’s apartment unless she’s being his escort to a party or something (unlike most professionals, Sungjong gets invited to parties—he’s that good at what he does, and it isn’t like there are many anthropologists anyway, so his novelty is appealing to administrators), and she has no other job than to make Sungjong happy which she’s very good at, so he agrees and he’s intrigued by the relief on Sungjong’s face. Sungjong is usually so very calm and collected, ruffled by nothing, but something about Minha makes him show emotions Sungyeol hadn’t known he had, emotions Sungyeol doesn’t have a name for since he’s never felt them himself. Since choosing Minha, Sungjong has filed more than one official report stating that, as an anthropologist, his professional opinion is that the system that enforces a chasm between physical and emotional relationships is not in the best interests of the human race. It’s risky, speaking out against the system that way, but Sungjong is in love, which is a rare enough thing (Sungyeol’s never known anyone else who was in love) that it seems to give him courage most others couldn’t dream of. Besides, Sungjong is good enough at his job—the best in his field, actually—that they’ll never get rid of him unless he breaks one of the Ultimate Laws, and that won’t happen. 

Sungyeol is in love, too, in his own way, with every person they send him. There’s always something to fall in love with: the way the skin of this girl’s neck flushes, the way this boy’s thick eyebrows shoot up when Sungyeol nibbles on his neck, the way this man laughs and laughs almost the whole time they’re together. He remembers some of them better than others, of course, and he used to feel a bit sad about that: each one of them is worth remembering if only his mind would let him. But he’s made his peace with it and he works very hard to make sure that even if he won’t remember them in a year or two that they will remember _him_ out of all the people they ever service. 

He hadn’t been so careful about that at first, when he turned sixteen and had the option of having someone sent to him for the first time. Sungjong had wanted to celebrate his birthday by sharing a special dinner in the cafeteria—a specially-requested dinner with one companion of the birthday celebrator’s choosing is allowed, though most people don’t bother—but Sungyeol had been looking forward to this since he first started waking up hard in the mornings, and there’d been no way he was going to spend his birthday any other way than having sex for the first time. He had spent the months leading up to it pouring over the pictures on the provider’s website, certain that he had to pick the most beautiful person in the world for his first time. He went over and over the files, settling on one and then changing his mind the next day—there were so many _options_ , so many beautiful people to choose from, he wanted _all_ of them. Sungjong, still a few years away from being old enough to be provided with a servicer himself, was not impressed. 

“You’re so greedy, hyung. Sex isn’t just about your pleasure—it evolved to have emotional and social uses in additional to the biological ones,” he said, but Sungyeol didn’t care (or understand. Emotional and social uses?). Every day after classes he would hurry back from the lecture room on the sixty-fifth floor to his apartment on the sixty-ninth and pull up the site on his pad screen. Before, he had spent his evenings with Sungong in the lounge—the anthropology department was small enough that it shared a lounge with chemistry and that was how he and Sungjong had even had chance to meet at all; most professionals never have any interactions with anyone outside their departments who isn’t in the service in some way, but Sungyeol’s always been glad of Sungjong, even if he can be annoyingly bossy and opinionated. 

“But you’ve forgotten all about me, hyung,” Sungjong says over lunch a few times as the time till Sungyeol’s birthday grows short. He doesn’t sound sad or angry or amused or even annoyed, just matter-of-fact and something else specifically Sungjong that Sungyeol doesn’t hear from anyone else. But he doesn’t pay much attention to it because he’s too busy narrowing down options in his head. (It doesn’t occur to him until much later that he’s the only friend Sungjong has. Eventually Sungyeol realizes that and feels guilty, at least until Minha, and after that he doesn’t feel guilty at all.)

One boy, a few months older than him by his stats, with a pointy nose and the most alluring mouth Sungyeol has ever seen, starts to stick in his mind. Sungyeol rejects him at first because even though he’s undoubtedly attractive, he’s definitely not one of the most beautiful options. But that mouth keeps popping up in Sungyeol’s mind when he’s supposed to be measuring chemicals and taking notes. His assigned sunbae Sunggyu is even more frustrated with him than usual; Sungyeol’s pretty sure that the only reason he didn’t ask to be assigned to a new hoobae long ago is because Sungyeol is actually really, really good at his studies when he bothers to pay attention and his high test scores look good on Sunggyu’s file. But Sungyeol wouldn’t have been surprised if Sunggyu actually had asked to be transferred in the weeks before Sungyeol’s sixteenth birthday. Especially with the way his face screwed up when Sungyeol decided to ask him for some insight.

“What’s the most important thing in a sex partner, sunbae-nim?” Sungyeol asks one day when Sunggyu is peering into a beaker to make sure the compound is the correct color.

Sunggyu almost drops the beaker. He momentarily looks so flustered Sungyeol almost laughs, but then he gives Sungyeol a hard look. “It is not one of my duties as your sunbae to educate you about such things. If you wish to discuss sexual relations, you should talk to your life counselor.” 

Sungyeol thinks of his life counselor, an older lady with graying hair and a terse manner, whose face is the first one Sungyeol remembers and who had been the one to tell him about the tests he would take for education assignments when he was six and about how his body would soon be changing when he was eleven or so. Every major life change or dispensing of non-studies related information has come from her, and yet he can’t imagine actually talking to her about something like this. Has she even ever had sex?

“I want to hear it from you, sunbae-nim. Tell me what your first time was like. Mine’s coming up soon, you know.”

“I know. I’m half expecting that you’ll never leave your room again and I won’t have to deal with you anymore.” Sunggyu actually does have a sense of humor, Sungyeol’s discovered over the years. It’s just that it’s very dry.

“Could I get away with that, Gyu-nim? Just stay in my apartment having sex forever?” The idea sounds fantastic to Sungyeol. Way more exciting than his future as a chemist anyway.

“How many times have I told you not to call me that? I’m going to dock points from your file if you call me that again.”

He never does get any actual response from Sunggyu about sex. He figures Sunggyu is one of those who doesn’t have it until he picks out the only servicer who will ever visit him, which Sungyeol knows he hasn’t yet. That seems crazy to Sungyeol, being faithful to just one servicer (especially when that servicer won’t be allowed to be faithful to him, not unless he gets as lucky as Sungjong and gets to keep a concubine) but he’s too caught up in the shape of that one servicer’s mouth to think much about it.

“Just because he’s got a mouth like that doesn’t mean he’ll be good at his job,” he reminds himself dozens of times. He’s decided to choose a girl, anyway, because the majority of males prefer females and he thinks Sungjong will be more interested in hearing about a girl than a boy. But somehow, the moment before lights-out the night before his birthday, he finds himself clicking on the boy’s profile as his final selection. The next second, when the lights in his apartment and the pad itself switch off, he feels a stab of regret: there were so many beautiful people to choose, why did he choose that boy? But the regret passes quickly and he barely sleeps that night, jerking off to the thought of the boy’s lips more times than he probably should, but who cares? He’s young and healthy and tomorrow he’s having sex for the first time.

He’s completely worthless the next day during classes. His professors yell at him and when he meets with Sunggyu, his sunbae smacks him over the head with a textbook but Sungyeol doesn’t even bother to sass back. At lunch, Sungjong rolls his eyes and tells him he looks like an idiot and to stop smiling that way, but Sungyeol doesn’t pay him any mind. After dinner, though—Sungyeol shovels it down so fast that Sungjong’s barely started before he finishes—Sungjong catches his arm as he shoves his chair back.

“I really hope you enjoy yourself, hyung. Happy birthday.”

He still has his birthday meeting with his life counselor that he has to get through before he’s allowed to go back to his apartment. He shows up twenty minutes early—Sungyeol is _never_ early—and the old biddy makes him wait until the precise time to enter her office. She takes her time once he’s inside, too, pulling up his file and going over it slowly. He’d had his physical the day before, and she wants to talk about each aspect of the results. He jiggles his leg and twists his fingers and tries to answer in as short of answers as possible. Then she goes over his studies file and makes the same comments she always does about how his work is excellent but that he needs to focus more and quit goofing around in class. “Be respectful to Sunggyu-ssi,” she says, just like always. “He’s the best, and we assigned him to you because you have the most potential, but if you keep disrespecting him we’ll transfer him to someone who can better appreciate what he has to offer.”

Sunggyu is the last person Sungyeol is worried about right now, so he hurriedly agrees that he’ll be better to his sunbae. Then his counselor goes over a few other things—that it seems they can finally stop sending him new clothes each month as he seems to have hit his final height, that he needs to eat more vegetables in the cafeteria and stop wasting so much, that he is to keep his apartment tidier or they’ll take away privileges, that they’re going to intensify his exercise regimen, that he needs to stop spending so much time with Sungjong so he doesn’t get distracted from hist studies. Sungyeol sits there with his hands twisted in the fabric of his pants and _wills_ her to hurry up. Finally she says, “And about tonight—“ and Sungyeol feels like his stomach is trying to throw itself on the ground.

“Let’s go over what we know about intercourse, shall we?”

Sungyeol has no desire to do any such thing. He knows everything he needs to—he’s read _all_ of Sungjong’s textbooks on the subject, even though as a chemistry student he’s not supposed to distract himself with other areas of study. He’s watched the films they’re allowed now and then with eager eyes and even taken notes (they don’t show actual intercourse, of course, but sometimes there’s kissing, in these old films from Before, and that’s more than enough to get Sungyeol excited). He’s kissed someone, too, which is more than most have ever done before they get their first servicer. It’s not allowed, and it was only Sungjong, who had been disgusted—“For God’s sake, hyung, keep your mouth to yourself!”—but still, it had felt really good and had been worth enduring Sungjong’s scorn for. No one had found out anyway, so he didn’t get in trouble. But between the feel of Sungjong’s lips under his and jerking himself off every night, he thinks he’s more than ready for this.

He tries to look attentive as his counselor drones on about things like lubrication and respect and how all of the servicers are absolutely free of disease and are incapable of procreation, a task left to the breeders, who Sungyeol will never see. Sungyeol _knows_ all of this stuff, though, so he fastens the image of the boy’s mouth in his mind and focuses on it (crossing his legs and shifting a little bit) until she finally concludes her lecture and dismisses him. He pops up right out of his chair, not even bothering to pretend he isn’t eager to leave, but he jerks to a stop and looks back at her when he hears her voice as he nears the door.

“Good choice, Sungyeol-ssi,” she says, and for a moment she doesn’t look quite as old as she always has.

For one horrifying moment he has the thought that she knows the boy is a good choice because of experience and he can’t think of anything in the world worse than sharing a servicer with his _life counselor_ (though why that should bother him any more than sharing a bathroom or a cafeteria with her, he doesn’t know). But the way she looks at him makes him realize she hadn’t meant that at all, that she was just commenting on the boy’s stats or his pictures or something. It’s still weird, but Sungyeol manages a ‘rest well, counselor-nim’ and then hurls himself out of the office and to the elevators and promptly forgets all about it.

It isn’t till he’s thrown himself into his apartment that it occurs to him that showing up with his hair and clothes mussed and out of breath from rushing probably won’t impress the boy. He’s not sure why he wants to impress him, exactly—after all, Sungyeol is a professional and this boy is just a servicer; everything about Sungyeol’s life and brain is better than this boy’s. But the boy’s probably had lots of professionals to service, and the thought slams into Sungyeol that the boy could laugh at him. Nothing seems worse than that.

He does laugh, actually, standing up from where he was seated on Sungyeol’s coach, dressed in the simple white slacks and tunic of the servicers, only his clings to chest and thighs in a way that the uniforms that the ones who clean the bathrooms wear definitely don’t. Sungyeol’s eyes go wide. That _mouth_.

“Happy birthday, Sungyeol-ssi,” the boy says, bowing low, and when he rises, he’s grinning wide, eyes crinkling and teeth flashing, and he’s even more attractive than he looked in the pictures. Sungyeol swallows hard.

“My name is Woohyun, and I’ll be servicing you tonight,” the boys says (it isn’t until later that Sungyeol figures out that they aren’t supposed to tell those they service their names, and he spends a lot of time wondering why Woohyun decided to: if Sungyeol had reported him, he’d have been in big trouble), and then walks to him and Sungyeol has just enough time to remember that he hasn’t brushed his teeth since dinner but then he forgets to panic because Woohyun’s tilting his head back and pressing his mouth against Sungyeol’s and— _wow_. That kiss he’d stolen from Sungjong that night in the elevator had been _nothing_ compared to this.

Sungyeol is flushed and panting by the time Woohyun pulls away, and Woohyun laughs again and presses a kiss to his nose. Sungyeol had never considered nose-kisses before, and they certainly don’t feel as good as the mouth kind, but he thinks he feels something warm knot up in his stomach at the gesture. “Fuck, you’re cuter than I thought you would be. It must be my lucky day.”

Sungyeol gets so caught up on the foul word—professionals aren’t allowed to use those words; the couple of times Sungyeol has, he’d gotten reported and had points docked—that it takes him a second to process what else he’d said. When he does, he feels his own skin turn so red that he can’t even blush any more than he already is when Woohyun laughs again.

“Come on,” Woohyun says, taking his hand and leading him towards the bed. “We’re going to have lots of fun.”

‘Fun’ doesn’t come anywhere close to describing what that night was like for Sungyeol. He’d give anything to remember it clearly, but afterwards it’s more a collection of jumbled images and sensation—the discovery of how many different things kissing could make him feel, the jolt that shot through him when Woohyun’s mouth latched onto his neck, the way he almost ripped his own shirt in two trying to get it off his body, the way Woohyun kept laughing with that amazing grin and telling him to calm down, how strong and steady Woohyun’s hands were everywhere he touched him. 

He does remember his first sight of Woohyun’s nude body quite clearly, though. He’d never seen anyone else naked before, and he’d been fascinated by how different Woohyun’s body was from his own—all the muscles more obvious and defined, darker skin not soft but smooth, limbs shorter and not as thin, more powerful than Sungyeol could ever imagine being. He’d of course known intellectually that different people’s bodies were different—Sungjong has curves where Sungyeol doesn’t, and of course the girls have far more curves than that, though Sungyeol wasn’t entirely clear on what they actually look like under their clothes. But Woohyun’s body is absolutely perfect and Sungyeol can’t stop running his hands over it. Woohyun seems surprised but he laughs again and seems like he enjoys it and while he gives Sungyeol a few instructions now and then, he seems pretty content to let Sungyeol do whatever he wants. But after Sungyeol’s finished exploring with his hands (everywhere but Woohyun’s penis, because he can’t quite bring himself to touch it because it’s just too much for him) Sungyeol realizes he has no idea what to do next. He knows the outline of intercourse, of course, both with men and women, and he figures Woohyun brought everything they’ll need with him, but—

Woohyun is good at his job, though (Sungyeol won’t understand for some time just how good, not until he has lots to compare him to), and he takes the lead without seeming to be in charge at all. There’s Woohyun’s mouth first and it’s just as mindblowing as Sungyeol had dreamed of: Sungyeol’s first orgasm from something other than his own hand is so good he can’t even move when it’s over. Woohyun swallows, wipes his mouth, and leans on his elbow beside Sungyeol, looking down into his face with a grin, and Sungyeol has to pull him down to kiss him again; he can’t get enough of the kissing. 

Once Sungyeol can breathe again, Woohyun asks, “Okay, top or bottom, Sungyeol-ssi?” and Sungyeol’s mind goes totally blank.

He’d had opinions on this, he knows he did, but he can’t seem to think of what they were right now, can only stammer and stare and—and Woohyun comes to the rescue again.

“Let’s start you out topping, then. Bottoming isn’t for everyone, but there’s no way you won’t like topping. We can try bottoming later—it’s a long night and tomorrow’s a rest day for professionals, right?”

Sungyeol is too flustered to figure out that that means that servicers don’t get rest days. He’s too busy silently freaking out. 

But Woohyun is right—he likes topping _so much_. He likes it from the moment that he sees Woohyun’s slick fingers slip behind him and start prodding at a place Sungyeol really hasn’t thought about in a sexual context (no matter what his life counselor had explained to him, no matter what he’s read in Sungjong’s books, somehow it hadn’t really connected with him until then), likes it up until the moment he comes inside Woohyun’s unbelievable tightness (later, he’ll learn that he came embarrassingly fast, but Woohyun didn’t seem to mind). Everything about it is so much more overwhelming than Sungyeol had been prepared for, so unbelievably better than anything else he’s ever experienced that the rest of his life, which was never all that colorful to begin with, now seems rendered in grayscale.

Later that night, Woohyun introduces him to bottoming, too, and Sungyeol discovers that he does like it, very much, just not nearly as much as topping. Afterwards and in between, there’s lots and lots of touching and kissing, ranging from frenzied to lazy, and if he doesn’t really understand Woohyun’s joke about how good it is to be with someone young ‘with fast recovery time,’ that doesn’t mean he doesn’t laugh along.

They barely sleep any at all, and Sungyeol feels completely wrung out by the time Woohyun kisses his nose again and tells him he has to go.

“Did you have a good time?” Woohyun asks, as he pulls his clothes back on. Sungyeol is sticky and hungry and thinks Woohyun probably is, too, and he wonders if he’ll be uncomfortable as he goes back to wherever it is the servicers live. He hopes Woohyun can have a long, hot shower and a good meal before he sleeps the day away. That’s what Sungyeol’s plans are.

“Fuck yes!” Sungyeol says, and it’s the first time he’s cursed since he was eleven or twelve. The word feels really good on his lips—strong and powerful, and nothing less would be good enough for the night just passed.

Woohyun laughs again—Sungyeol will remember his laughter later, the first thing he ever fell in love with—and kisses Sungyeol long and deep. He pulls back and looks deep into Sungyeol’s eyes and Sungyeol holds his gaze and tries not to blush, especially when one of Woohyun’s big strong hands runs down the length of his bare side. “You really are so fucking cute,” Woohyun says and he’s smiling, but it’s not the easy wide grin from before but something smaller and somehow solemn that makes Sungyeol’s stomach squirm. “I won’t forget you, Lee Sungyeol-ssi. Don’t forget me, either.”

Sungyeol doesn’t. Sungyeol _couldn’t_. He is completely sure in that moment and forever afterwards that even if Woohyun hadn’t been his first that he’d never be able to forget him. And Sungyeol remembers his name, too, the only one a servicer ever gives him, and he thinks pretty often of requesting Woohyun again, but there’s so many other people he wants to experience, and by the time he gets around actually doing it a year or three later, he’s informed that Woohyun has been permanently placed. Sungyeol thinks of him often, and he hopes that whoever he’s found himself with appreciates him, his mouth and his muscles and his laughter and his solemn smile. Sungyeol still does.

Woohyun was his first introduction to sex, but Sungyeol discovers later that even though Woohyun was a perfect teacher, Sungyeol himself didn’t learn very much from him. He starts to request a servicer every time he’s allowed one (once a week), picking a new one each time. The first woman he sleeps with is stunning, if a little older than he expected, and _fuck_ , women underneath their clothes are even more amazing than he’d imagined. She’s professional and not particularly chatty but she makes him feel so good and the sound she makes when he tongues at her breasts (discovering breasts is a _huge_ moment for Sungyeol) is the thing he falls in love with about her. After her there’s men and women in no particular pattern, all gorgeous, and sooner or later the service gets to know him well enough that he stops requesting particular people and just lets them send whoever they want to.

He’s always so eager to get started, shucking his clothes off immediately and helping his servicer out of theirs. And then it’s a race to pleasure—he likes to explore their bodies because it gets him excited, but really he’s constantly itching to get his dick—one of the guys teaches him that word and he likes it—into something tight and warm, it doesn’t really matter what it is. He doesn’t much think about it from the servicer’s perspective, not even after he catches one of the girls, tiny and lovely with huge eyes and a birthmark on her shoulder, crying when he wakes in the middle of the night. She breaks off in a gasp when he asks her what’s wrong, swiping at her cheeks and smiling wide and promising it’s nothing at all. He relaxes again—well, if it’s nothing—and goes back to sleep. With each week that passes, he grows more confident that he knows all there is to know about sex. It isn’t until some months later that he figures out that he hasn’t learned nearly as much as he thought he had.

The girl they send has a wide smile that reminds him of Woohyun’s even if it’s nothing like his at all and it makes Sungyeol’s pace and heartbeat quicken as he crosses to her. Smiles like that are rare, he’s found. Most of the servicers look very pleasant and are completely accommodating, and none of them ever complain, of course. Most of them wait for him to tell them what he wants and they go along willingly. It’s really good, and he has enjoyed every one of them, but none of them have made him feel as alive and happy as Woohyun. But this girl’s smile makes him think that maybe she will.

He’s got his shirt off by the time he reaches her and tugs her to him before she’s even out of her bow, and he’s got her in a kiss before she can even greet him. She’s got long hair that feels amazing as his fingers tangle in it and a face—he’d barely caught a glimpse of it—halfway between cute and beautiful. 

When he pulls back to breathe, hands already sliding up under her shirt, she laughs. It’s the first time a servicer has laughed with him since Woohyun, and the sound of it makes him feel more excited than he’s been in a while. 

“Well, you just jump right into it, don’t you? No messing around for you.”

“What does that mean?” Sungyeol’s voice comes out sharper than he’d meant for it to, and for a second he thinks he sees a flash of fear in her eyes.

“Nothing, Sungyeol-ssi!” she says, face pleasant, but her laughing grin is gone. Sungyeol doesn’t like that. He tames his voice.

“I mean—no, I really want to know what you meant. I’m not mad, but—“

She searches his face for a moment and must decide he’s sincere because her own breaks out in a grin again and he feels something inside him relax while something else tightens. “It’s just—getting right to it can be really great. But easing in can be good, too, you know.”

No, Sungyeol doesn’t know, and for a second he feels a flash of anger at her: he doesn’t like the implication that she knows more than him. She’sa _servicer_. But her voice wasn’t patronizing and he smothers his anger. She probably _does_ know more than him, at least about this, as everyone has their area of specialization, even servicers—probably there are lots of servicers that know more about repairing broken elevators than he does and that’s as it should be. Besides, he doesn’t want to scare her again: he wants her to laugh like Woohyun laughed. 

He’s not going to actually ask her to clarify though. His pride won’t allow that. But she doesn’t seem to need the invitation. “There’s all different kinds of sex, you know. The slow-burn is one of the best.”

He learns more from her than from anyone else he’s ever been with. It’s as good as Woohyun (other than the two of them, he never rates experiences, because they’re all so different. But this girl—he wants to know her name so bad, in a way he hasn’t wanted to know any of the others’—and Woohyun, they’re far beyond all the others) but so very different. The slow-burn _is_ good. Really good. She teaches him about teasing, about drawn-out foreplay. When he tries to rush right into penetration, she laughs and punches his shoulder and tells him that he’s ruining it.

“Sex is a lot better when your partner is as into it as you are,” she announces.

This, Sungyeol had never considered. Aren’t they all as into it as he is? It’s their _job_.

She rolls her eyes. (No servicer has ever done that before, and Sungyeol finds himself grinning. It reminds him of Sungjong.) “Look, most of us service a lot of people. For most of us it becomes pretty routine. Wouldn’t you rather be one of the ones who isn’t routine? Someone worth remembering?”

_Fuck yes_ Sungyeol would. On the nights when he doesn’t have a servicer, he mostly gets himself off by remembering Woohyun kissing him and telling him he wouldn’t forget him. He wants more of that.

The girl teaches him how. She’s jokey and a bit loud, more personality than any servicer he’s ever seen, and sometimes he’s a bit annoyed by it, but mostly he likes it. He likes _her_ , in a way he hasn’t thought about liking any of them but Woohyun. And she’s straightforward about it, which saves Sungyeol’s pride. 

“You clearly only think about yourself during sex.” It doesn’t sound like a criticism, just a fact, and Sungyeol can’t really argue with her. He likes sex so much that that’s pretty much all he thinks about—and who else would he think about anyway? “And it’s not such a big deal—you aren’t cruel and you don’t want to hurt us so that’s good.” Sungyeol doesn’t know what she means about cruel or wanting to hurt, but she’s still talking so he doesn’t have much time to think about it. “But it could be better for you. If your partner knows that you want her to feel as good as you do, she’ll be that much more invested in making you feel good too. Mutual pleasure is the very best kind.”

And fuck, she isn’t wrong. The whole night she teaches him about what women like. When she finds out that he likes men, too, she grins. “Guys are different. Think about what you like, try it out for him. But every person is different. Each woman likes something different, each man likes something different. What I’ve told you about women can help, but you just have to experiment with each partner to figure out what works for them.”

She figures out quickly what works for him: she’s a fast learner, but then he is, too. And he discovers how right she is about everything: there’s a certain kind of pleasure he gets from making her moan (real moans, he learns, because she tells him that a lot of times the servicers fake it, and then laughs at how shocked he is) that makes his own even better. 

She kisses him goodbye the next morning, just like Woohyun had, though her kiss is different, just like she said everyone’s is. “You’re a fast learner, Sungyeol-ssi. Good work!” she says, punching him on the shoulder again, and it’s nothing like any servicer has ever been with him, but he likes it.

“So you won’t forget me?” he teases, but there’s something inside him that really, really means the question, that really needs to hear that she won’t. 

“I definitely won’t,” she answers, grinning, and he can tell that she means it. He’s smiling, wide and gummy, as he closes the door behind her.

Sex gets _even better_ after that, once he starts focusing on making his servicer feel good too. Almost none of them are as good as Woohyun or his teacher-girl (as he calls her in his head), most of them professionally focused, but there are a few—the guy with the wild laugh, the woman with the swords and roses tattoos—that come close, that he’ll remember forever. But every encounter is good in its own way, every person worth finding something about them to fall in love with. Sungyeol goes to classes every day, annoys Sunggyu, meets with his life counselor once a month, graduates with honors but with a note in his file about unruly behavior, gets assigned to Sunggyu’s section, works mixing chemicals and taking notes and doing research, eats lunch and dinner with Sungjong, watches old movies now and then, reads some of Sungjong’s anthropology books about interesting things like war and language—but it’s his service visits he lives for. 

He never feels more alive than when he’s touching someone, pleasing them, having them please him. It surprises him, how much he loves touching in bed when he never really cared much for it in other contexts. But he doesn’t question it because it’s his favorite thing in the world. Each week a new servicer, a new person to discover, a new something to fall in love with. Each week something new to tell Sungjong (at first Sungjong doesn’t care, isn’t at all interested in Sungyeol’s ‘exploits’ but eventually he decides that Sungyeol is an amazing case study and starts to listen to his stories with a sort of clinical intensity that really robs them of most of their fun, at least in Sungyeol’s opinion. Sungjong tends to disagree). 

The move from classes to work is less drastic than he’d thought it would be—he’s doing pretty much the same work only with a few different people and for real now instead of for testing by the instructors—and other than the peripheral addition of Minha to his world when Sungjong is nineteen, there’s really nothing to measure the flow of time other than the new faces waiting for him each week when he gets home from dinner. Sungyeol feels the vague notion itching at him that he wants something _else_ , something _bigger_ , but it’s easy enough to ignore when he’s wrapped between sheets with someone else’s skin against his. Life, he thinks, is going to continue on this way until he dies and if that gives him moments of panic, they’re brief enough that he can move past them. 

And maybe his life _would_ have carried on just like that except that one day he walks into his room and the boy is there.


	2. two

“Hello,” Sungyeol says, kicking off his shoes and setting his briefcase down by the door. The boy sitting on his couch shoots to his feet, moving away from the furniture as though he wasn’t supposed to be near it. It makes Sungyeol pause in taking his jacket off; servicers are rarely that nervous and when they are, they’re much better at hiding it. But this boy’s eyes are wide and his hands are in fists by his side and that intrigues Sungyeol.

The boy is handsome—incredibly handsome. One of the handsomest Sungyeol has seen and he’s seen a lot. He’s so perfect, head-to-toe (the servicer’s uniforms are cut in a way that reveals more than they obscure without being vulgar at all), that he could almost be one of those ancient statues from the museum Sungjong drags him to come to life if it weren’t for the fact that there’s something boyish about his face. That boyishness plus the nervousness makes him seem young, younger than Sungyeol assumes he probably is.

He’s watching Sungyeol as intently as Sungyeol is studying him, only his eyes aren’t assessing like most servicers. They show more emotions than Sungyeol’s ever seen in a servicer’s eyes, and Sungyeol couldn’t tell what those emotions are, but they make him nervous. Or something.

The boy belatedly remembers to bow and does, so low that Sungyeol thinks he might hit his nose on his kneecap. His face is flushed when he rises and Sungyeol can’t figure out why he’s so anxious. Does Sungyeol look that imposing? Does he think Sungyeol’s going to pull out the whips and chains? (Not that he hasn’t enjoyed that, on occasion, but he isn’t in the mood for that tonight, and he can’t really imagine doing it with this boy. Man. Boy. Whatever he is.)

“I’m Sungyeol,” he says, and usually he doesn’t bother to introduce himself because the servicers would already be informed of it, but somehow this boy looks like he needs the reassurance.

“I’m—“ the boy starts, then stops, as though just now remembering he shouldn’t tell his name, hesitates, clearly trying to figure out what to say instead. “Thank you for your time, Sungyeol-ssi,” he says finally, the words tumbling out awkwardly.

Sungyeol laughs, heading over to the kitchen. “Aren’t I the one who should think you for your time? You want something to drink?”

The boy hesitates again, and when Sungyeol glances over his shoulder, his forehead is rumpled like he’s trying to remember if he’s allowed to or not. Which is ridiculous—servicers can’t ask for anything, of course, but they can (should) take anything they’re offered. Sungyeol looks at him for a second, pulls open the cooler. There’s a bottle of soju there, his monthly allotment of alcohol. He rarely shares it with anyone, even Sungjong, and only ever offers the servicers water or juice. But for some reason he finds himself grabbing the bottle and two glasses, pouring one and walking over to hand it to the boy.

The boy takes it, looking strangely grateful, but waits until Sungyeol throws his own back before he does the same. The motion shows off the bob of his Adam’s apple, one of the most prominent Sungyeol has ever seen, one he wants to run his tongue and teeth all over, and if he wasn’t already interested in this boy’s beauty before, he’s half-hard now.

“That better?” Sungyeol asks with a twist of his mouth, putting his glass down and taking the boy’s from him, too.

“I—yes?” The kid doesn’t seem to have any idea of what Sungyeol is talking about, but he’s trying _so hard_ to be polite. It’s pretty endearing, that earnestness. Sungyeol doesn’t see it a lot in servicers, has only really experienced it on occasion when he’s with his assigned hoobae Niel. 

That’s about as much of a conversation as Sungyeol ever has with a servicer before getting to the good stuff, but for some reason he wants to keep talking to this kid—to soothe him, maybe, set him at ease. He’s so tense, the line of his shoulders taut in his tunic. Sungyeol tries to think of something to say, but what _is_ there to say? He thinks of what he says at dinner with Sungjong—at meetings with Niel or Sunggyu—but you can’t say those things to a servicer. Even something as simple as ‘How was your day?’ doesn’t make sense in this context at all. He only ever really talks about work with people, except with Sungjong, though the strange conversations they have (‘We really aren’t supposed to talk about these things, hyung. We can’t let anyone hear us’) are about Sungjong’s work at least. But this kid’s work is sex, and considering how much experience Sungyeol has in that area, he’d almost think he could at least talk about that, but somehow he thinks that would only make the kid more nervous. 

No talking then. Sungyeol takes a step towards him, reaches out a hand and drags delicate fingers over the bump of the kid’s Adam’s apple. It bobs jerkily in response, and _fuck_ , that’s sexy: Sungyeol thinks he’s found the thing he’ll fall in love with about this boy. He still has his eyes on it as he eases closer and brings his mouth down.

Kissing this boy is—different. The boy lets out a half-formed gasp when Sungyeol’s meet his own, and though his lips are thinner than Sungyeol usually likes, they’re warm and supple, and this should be perfect, except the kid doesn’t seem to know what to do with them. He lets Sungyeol kiss him, and when Sungyeol’s lips grow more insistent, he tries to kiss back, except he doesn’t seem to have any idea of how to actually do that. He’s so tense against Sungyeol, his body practically quivering with tension, and Sungyeol is a little unnerved by that, though he feels good against him otherwise: hard muscle, so warm, and Sungyeol’s had girls the last couple of weeks; he’d missed the hardness of a man’s body.

It in’t much of a kiss at all, but the boy is panting when Sungyeol pulls back, and his eyes are—terrified? God, when was the last time he’d seen someone look scared? Niel had been anxious before his final exams right before graduation, but not like this. But this kid is a _servicer_. This doesn’t make any sense.

“Settle down, okay? We’ll take it slow.”

As soon as the words are out, Sungyeol is confused as to why he even said them. There is no reason Sungyeol should say that—he’s reassuring a servicer, and isn’t that really weird? If anyone does reassuring, it should be the servicer, not the professional. What the hell is going on?

Sungyeol kisses him again, running a hand down the boy’s lightly defined arm, getting a bit closer till their bodies are completely pressed together. The boy’s tension hasn’t eased, and when Sungyeol’s tongue prods at the mouth, it takes a stuttering moment or two for him to open it, like he’s just figuring out that he should. The sound the boy makes when Sungyeol’s tongue slips inside his mouth sounds almost—shocked. And the boy is still standing stock-still, hasn’t moved to slide his arms around Sungyeol’s shoulders or waist or to grind himself against Sungyeol like any other servicer would do. What is _with_ this kid?

Still kissing him—he has a great mouth for kissing, even if for some reason he isn’t doing much kissing back—Sungyeol eases him back towards the bed. The boy moves as he’s guided, but his movements are anything but graceful because of how taut he’s holding himself. When they’re on the bed, Sungyeol not on top of him but beside him (he doesn’t know why—with any other servicer he’d be on top already—or have them pulled on top of him—but for some reason he doesn’t with this kid), Sungyeol finally breaks the kiss and the boy’s head falls back onto the bed. His hand—he has nice hands, Sungyeol notes, long-fingered and strong—steals up and his fingers prod at his own lips, and Sungyeol lets out a little laugh at how completely surprised (and yes, still scared) the boy looks.

“What’s with you?” He can’t keep himself from asking the question; this is the weirdest servicer he’s ever had. “You’re acting like you’ve never done this before.”

The boy flushes redder than his tanned skin should allow and Sungyeol almost falls off the bed. He doesn’t need to hear the barely-audible “I haven’t,” because he’s already jerked upright and is trying to keep his head from spinning right off his shoulders.

Okay, this does not make sense. At all. For one thing, the kid is way too old for it to be his first time—he can’t be that much younger that Sungyeol, and there’s no way a servicer could make it to this age without having worked before (what would he have been _doing_ all this time if not servicing?). And even if by some miracle he did, they wouldn’t send him to Sungyeol. Virgins are in high demand and there are never enough of them to meet that demand, so only the most accomplished and powerful—the administration, a level above the professionals—ever get one. Besides, Sungyeol’s never _wanted_ a virgin: he wants people who know what they’re doing—he’s only got one night a week with a servicer and he isn’t going to waste it on someone who isn’t skilled, and even if the servicers have been trained their whole lives before they’re put into service, Sungyeol can’t help but remember his own first time and doesn’t trust that they’ll have figured things out yet—and the provider knows that. There is no reason at all for a full-grown man (and he is that, even if Sungyeol can’t think of him as anything but a kid) who hasn’t ever serviced before to be lying on Sungyeol’s bed.

All of this lightnings through Sungyeol’s mind in a flash of shock, and before he can even think to form words, he’s saying, “But you’re so old!” voice cracking with incredulity.

The boy looks even more scared now, and he tries to push himself up onto his elbows and falls back onto the bed before he manages to get himself upright. Then he’s scrambling to stand at the foot of the bed, bowing low. “I’m sorry—I’m sorry—I’m sorry.” The boy doesn’t seem to realize he’s repeating the words over and over, but he looks like he’s about to fall on his knees at any moment and as confused as Sungyeol is, he doesn’t want that to happen.

His hands are on the boy’s shoulders before he has time to think about it, and the part of his mind that isn’t carouseling is aware that he’s trying to comfort the kid again. (But why? And why through _touching_ of all things?) “It’s okay. I’m not mad, I’m just—how did you get this old without having serviced before?” _And why did they send you to me?_

The boy’s mouth opens and shuts a few times; he still looks panicked if not as terrified as before. Sungyeol uses his firm grip on the boy’s shoulders to guide him to sit on the edge of the bed, sits beside him and takes his hands away. When he does, the boy looks a tiny bit less frightened, and a thought shapes itself in the back of Sungyeol’s mind: _it scares him when I touch him_.

The boy’s hands clench in the fabric of the comforter and no words are coming out of his mouth. Sungyeol is not usually a tolerant person, but maybe his curiosity is overcoming his impatience. “Okay,” he says, trying to think of where to start. With basics: “You’re a servicer.”

“I’m a laborer,” the boy blurts and Sungyeol hadn’t thought all of this could make even less sense, but it suddenly does. Laborer? That’s lower than servicers, even. That’s unskilled work, and even the servicers who clean the bathrooms for the professionals and administrators look down their noses at laborers. There isn’t anyone below the laborers (the breeders aren’t a part of the hierarchy, they’re something different altogether, and that’s as much as Sungyeol knows about them—even Sungjong doesn’t know anything else. ‘That information is administration-level classified,’ Sungjong had said with a grimace when Sungyeol asked him, and he knows Sungjong had tried to find out and was unsuccessful). 

Sungyeol is about to demand that the boy explain what the hell he’s doing here if he’s a laborer—and why he’s wearing a servicer’s uniform (Sungyeol has never seen anyone wear a uniform of another a level, has never even heard about someone doing it, but he knows, somehow, is completely sure that if someone did, they would…disappear), but the boy hurries to clarify.

“I _was_ a laborer.” His voice, Sungyeol notices now that he’s saying more than one word together, is a bit nasal, but not unpleasantly so, though the words are stuttering out awkwardly. “Last month they came and took me and a few others and—“

And the puzzle is beginning to piece itself together in Sungyeol’s mind. He’s heard about this, a few times, and probably only because he’s friends with Sungjong, who seems to know all sorts of things he isn’t supposed to know. Sometimes the administration gets something wrong: the numbers are off, the balance is off, and they have to move people from one level to another to compensate. The first time Sungjong had mentioned something like that, it had freaked Sungyeol out so much that he’d almost asked Sungjong to stop talking about it, but somehow he couldn’t stop listening. He hasn’t thought about it all that much since then, but it’s popped up in his mind now and then, and when it does he can’t help but prod at it like the he used to prod with his tongue after he lost a teeth at the space where it had been.

So for some reason there hadn’t been enough servicers in the sexual services department and they’d gone to the labor pool to find some to raise their numbers. It’s clear as day why this boy was chosen; whoever did the choosing must have been giddy when they saw this face, this body. So they brought him up a level and put him in the pool and they’ve probably spent the last month trying to cram him full of information that he should have learned over the course of his entire childhood. No wonder he doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing. Is his mind even capable of understanding servicer-level information? 

It still doesn’t explain why the kid is with _Sungyeol_ , not when there’s probably a list of administrators waiting for virgins. It must be some sort of managerial mistake. Sungyeol should probably send him back right away; it’s not too late for them to send someone else the kid’s place. Maybe his teacher-girl is still available?

But he doesn’t. Instead, he reaches out and pries the boy’s hands from where they’re clutching the bedspread and turns them over in his. The boy tenses, as Sungyeol knew he would, but he lets Sungyeol do what he wants. Sungyeol explores the boy’s palms with his fingertips, noting the little intake of breath that the boy lets out when Sungyeol touches him. And yes: the service provider has done their job well, the skin of his hands are as soft as any servicer’s. But underneath the softness there’s a lingering row of small bumps, the remnants of calluses. He was a laborer. 

Sungyeol lets the boys hands fall away from his and lets out a long sigh. He pushes himself back till he’s sitting against the headboard and motions for the boy to join him, smiling a bit at the boy’s obedience and still-anxious eyes.

“Look,” Sungyeol says. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, okay?”

Sungyeol doesn’t know why he’s saying this. Of course they have to do something, if he isn’t going to send the boy back. That’s what this boy is here for, that’s his job, and besides, even if they don’t, surely tomorrow someone else will. Sungyeol finds himself feeling uneasy at the thought of someone careless being this boy’s first, finds himself thinking of the girl who had cried in the middle of the night back those years ago. For the first time, it occurs to him that she must have been new at her job, too; there’s no way Sungyeol was her first, but he could have been her second or her third, and she had cried. Sungyeol himself hasn’t cried since he was a little kid and broke his arm during exercise time. He’s never seen anyone else cry, ever. But that girl had, and Sungyeol dreams about it sometimes, though he doesn’t like to think about it during the day.

“Not do anything?” the boy echoes, sounding caught between wonder and horror. “I don’t—I don’t please you?”

Sungyeol can’t stop the barking laugh he lets out at that. “I’m sure you’d please me plenty.” He’d only gotten a glimpse of the kid’s ass when he first stood up, but from what he could see it was one of the better ones he’s ever seen. And his mouth is great if he’ll only figure out what to do with it and those beautiful hands—Sungyeol _knows_ this kid would please him.

“It’s not that,” he explains. “It’s just that it’s got to be some sort of mistake, them sending you here.” The boys eyebrows dip in confusion. “I don’t ask for virgins,” Sungyeol clarifies. Well, it’s more complicated than that, but he really doesn’t want to get into this with the boy now. If he’d even understand.

The boy blushes again. “Oh.”

“Yeah. I should really send you back right now so they can send you to whoever you really should go to.” He doesn’t know why he hasn’t.

“Oh.”

There’s probably some administrator, a few floors up, who was anticipating a virgin tonight and is throwing a fit over being stuck with whatever experienced servicer was supposed to go to Sungyeol. If Sungyeol sends the boy back now, they might send him right up. Or wait till tomorrow since part of the allotted time has already passed. Who knows? Either way, today or tomorrow, someone will be this boy’s first time, and Sungyeol doesn’t like that he doesn’t like that idea. 

“But…”

The boy’s head flies up from where he’d been contemplating his own hands in his lap, eyes wild. “Sungyeol-ssi?”

Sungyeol likes the way his voice sounds when he’s saying his name. It makes him feel less like he should feel guilty about what he says next. “But we I don’t have to.”

The boy’s eyes widen. It makes him look even younger, and for some reason it’s intolerable to Sungyeol that someone else might touch this boy for the first time. He remembers how he was with the servicers, back before his teacher-girl. He’d probably hurt some of them, without really meaning to, and the others who weren’t hurt probably weren’t particularly happy either. That’s their job, though, to service even if it doesn’t bring them pleasure, and it’s never bothered Sungyeol much; he works to bring his servicer pleasure because his teacher-girl had been right: it _does_ make for better sex. But probably most of the ones being serviced don’t bother with that, and this kid is so scared that Sungyeol wants to make sure that he doesn’t get hurt his first time. 

He doesn’t know why. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s the _job_. But he feels it nonetheless.

“You could stay with me and we could have sex,” Sungyeol says, and he thinks it sounds a little colder than what he means, but he doesn’t know how else to say it, and why shouldn’t it be cold?

The boy stares some more. “Won’t we get in trouble? If—if I’m not supposed to be here?”

Sungyeol’s already thought of that. “We’ll just tell them I didn’t know you were a virgin. It’s not as obvious with guys as it is with girls.”

“But won’t I—“ The boy stops, face crumpling up in fear, as though he almost just said something he shouldn’t have.

But Sungyeol isn’t bothered. “No, you won’t get in trouble. You didn’t have any reason to think that you weren’t sent where you were supposed to be. You were obedient—you went where you were told, and that’s what you’re supposed to do.”

The boy looks torn, clearly unsure of what he should do, his hands back to fisting in the bedspread. 

“I can send you back right now.”

“No! I mean—I don’t know—I mean—“

God, this kid is adorable. Sungyeol really doesn’t want to send him back.

“It’s up to you.” (It won’t occur to him till much, much later that this is probably the first choice the boy has ever been offered in his whole life. It takes him even longer to wonder why he offered him the choice in the first place.) 

The kid looks almost miserable with internal conflict, and Sungyeol can’t resist edging closer to him on the bed. 

“If you stay with me….”

The boy’s eyes fly to his again, and Sungyeol feels like he’s begging for some guidance.

“I could make it good.”

“Good?” The boy sounds like he’s never heard the word before.

“Yeah.” He reaches out and traces the line of the boy’s exposed collarbone. He really is gorgeous. “Didn’t they tell you it could feel good?”

“Good—for _me_?”

Sungyeol almost wants to laugh at how disbelieving he sounds, but he gets it: they probably don’t tell them it can be good, because probably for most of them, most of the time, it might not be. After all, the point isn’t for it to be good for the servicers; the point is for the servicers to make those they’re servicing feel good. Any pleasure the servicers feel is only coincidental.

But. 

But Sungyeol wants to make this boy feel good. Or at least make sure that it doesn’t hurt him. He really, really doesn’t want the boy to leave.

“Really good.” He leans in and kisses the boy gently—his lips are trembling—and then presses another kiss to his neck. The boy starts, his fingers flexing against the bedspread, and Sungyeol smiles.

“Will you stay with me?” Sungyeol whispers against the boy’s lips. Still trembling. Somehow that’s so, so sexy. (Thing number two Sungyeol falls in love with.)

“I—yes,” the boy stutters, and Sungyeol feels something he can’t name surge through him as he kisses the boy again.

 

 

Now that Sungyeol knows that the boy really doesn’t know anything first-hand about kissing, it all makes so much more sense and it also makes him want to teach him. Fortunately for him, the boy is a quick learner and eager to please, following Sungyeol’s lead absolutely. The kissing gets better with each passing moment, and Sungyeol has the hazy thought that soon this boy is going to be as good as any of the others he’s ever had. 

But he’s still so tense. Even as Sungyeol eases them down so that they’re lying on the bed again—still side-by-side; Sungyeol doesn’t want to overwhelm him—the boy’s muscles feel like stone against him. Sungyeol laughs into a kiss, pulls back enough to say, “Relax. I promise everything will feel good.” The tension leaks out of him so slowly, though, so very slowly that it’s some time later before Sungyeol notices that he has started to relax—and that he’s squirming a bit in its place. That squirming? Somehow it’s very sexy, too.

They kiss for a long, long time. Sungyeol likes kissing, but he’s never liked it with anyone quite as much as he likes it with this boy (and he’s never spent as much time doing it as he is now, either). Every time he tries something new—sliding his tongue against the boy’s, scraping his teeth lightly over the boy’s lip, anything at all—the boy jumps at the new sensation or makes some startled noise, but then he meets Sungyeol’s gesture with one of his own, repeating it like a lesson he’s trying to learn. It makes Sungyeol feel a bit tingly with…something. Power, maybe? Accomplishment? No wonder his teacher-girl had liked teaching him so much; there’s something really special about having someone learn from you. Sungyeol’s felt that to a much lesser extent when he’s explained something to Niel and Niel _gets_ it, but this is a different level completely.

By the time Sungyeol slides his mouth away from the boy’s and down to his jawline, his mouth is almost aching with the amount of kissing they’ve done. But he doesn’t want to give his lips a rest, not with the definition of this jawline, with those collarbones and that Adam’s apple waiting below. The boy makes a whining noise and squirms as though it’s almost too much for him, and Sungyeol smiles against his throat. The boy still hasn’t touched him at all other than with their mouths, but Sungyeol lets his hand slide up and down the boy’s arms as he mouths as his Adam’s apple, and the boy tentatively returns the gesture. His hand feels good on Sungyeol’s skin.

After leaving a series of marks on the boy’s neck and shoulders, relishing the squirming and the sounds, Sungyeol sits up and the boy hurries to mirror him. “Here,” Sungyeol says, and reaches out to pull at the bottom of the boy’s tunic. The boy just looks at him for a moment, eyes wide and pupils blown out, mouth swollen and red blemishes on his skin; he looks like a mixture of debauched and innocent that Sungyeol had never considered before but that he finds almost impossibly hot. He tugs a bit more insistently on the tunic and then something seems to click in the boy’s head and he reaches down to pull it off.

It leaves his hair mussed, which makes him look younger than ever, and Sungyeol is _so glad_ the boy didn’t ask to be sent back. His body is less defined than Sungyeol is used to, the lines of his muscles a bit softer, and Sungyeol understands that his muscles are different—they come from use, not from the machines in an exercise room, not for show. That somehow makes them sexier. Sungyeol’s always liked the chocolate abs and raised pectorals on the male servicers, but now he thinks that these more subtle muscles are far more beautiful. 

He tugs his own shirt off and the boys eyes go wider, and Sungyeol has to laugh because oh: he’s probably never seen anyone else without their shirt on before, just like Sungyeol hadn’t before his first time. The boy’s hand twitches towards Sungyeol as though he’s reaching out to touch before he jerks it back, and Sungyeol laughs again. “C’mere.”

The boy’s torso feels so good under Sungyeol’s hands, his skin so taut and warm and flawless. The boy wriggles some more at the feel of Sungyeol’s hands, panting harder than really makes sense and jolting when Sungyeol’s fingers brush against his nipples. Sungyeol’s been with some very responsive people over the years, but this boy is something else altogether. Each tiny touch seems to shoot through him like an electric shock and the noises he makes are so delicious Sungyeol thinks he could just touch him like this forever. 

Well, not really. There’s lots more Sungyeol wants to do with him. But they have all night, and Sungyeol intends to use every moment of it. 

After a few minutes of Sungyeol exploring his torso, the boy finally reaches to touch Sungyeol in return. At first his touches are small, tentative, barely there at all and lasting only a heartbeat before he pulls away, eyes flashing up to Sungyeol’s face and then back down to his torso again, like he’s checking again and again that Sungyeol isn’t getting upset at the touching. But when Sungyeol smiles at him encouragingly, he grows more confident, and after a minute, his hands are running all over Sungyeol’s skin, eyes glued to the path of his hands, so eager, like he’s addicted to the feel of Sungyeol. It’s really flattering, the intensity with which the boy touches and stares, and Sungyeol remembers how fascinated he’d been with Woohyun’s body, how different it was from his own. His body is different than the boy’s, too, and that must be what’s captivating him. Their body shapes are more similar than his and Woohyun’s had been, but the differences are there. His skin is so much paler than the boy’s (some laborers work outside, Sungyeol remembers, though Sungyeol himself has never been outside at all, and gets all his Vitamin D from the special lights that are installed in the exercise rooms) and far softer, too; there’s more give under the skin, less muscle definition. Sungyeol is thin and his exercise regimen keeps him in good shape, but there’s a softness to his belly that no servicer—or laborer—could ever have, and the boy seems absolutely enthralled by it. 

“Mouths feel good, too,” Sungyeol says suddenly, and the boy jerks his hands back as though he was being shouted at. Sungyeol laughs, leans forward and presses a kiss to the boy’s mouth. “On other places,” he says. “Want to try?”

Again, the boy’s first tries are so hesitant that they become unintentionally teasing, his tongue darting out then back in so fast it’s almost frustrating. But as he gets more used to it, he starts to linger and though Sungyeol has to give him directions (about teeth-use, mostly) a few times, he’s mostly content to let the boy explore. When Sungyeol first lets out a groan, the boy looks up at him in fear, but Sungyeol shakes his head.

“That’s a good sound. If you do anything I don’t like, I’ll tell you, okay? So until I do, you can assume I like it.”

The boy looks relieved at that, and he goes back to licking and sucking at the moles scattered along Sungyeol’s upper torso like he thinks they’re made of chocolate and he could lick them away. A minute later he lets out a sound that’s close to a breathy laugh when his tongue darts over Sungyeol’s nipple and it hardens immediately while Sungyeol lets out a little moan, and when he raises his eyes briefly to Sungyeol’s, they’re still intense but also dancing with the joy of new discovery (this is the third thing Sungyeol falls in love with). 

Sungyeol would almost be annoyed with how much the boy seems to enjoy his belly, but the boy seems so genuinely delighted by the slight fleshiness that Sungyeol ends up letting him leave lovemarks all over. When the boy notices the red marring the snowy paleness of Sungyeol’s skin, he looks horrified, stammering out apologies (the first words he’s said since he said ‘yes’), and Sungyeol laughs again. “It’s okay,” he says, and squeezes the boy’s upper arm. “That’s supposed to happen. Some people might not like you to leave marks, but they’ll tell you first, and if they do, you just don’t stay in one place for too long, okay? So don’t worry about it.”

The fear leaks out of the boy’s eyes and he nods obediently; Sungyeol knows he’s committing that to memory and feels again the tingle at teaching this boy. He pulls off his trousers, and the boy’s mouth makes an O at the sight of Sungyeol’s dick, half-hard from the boy’s mouth all over him (and even more from the anticipation of what else they’ll do), and Sungyeol laughs at the—surely—unconscious expression. The boy just sits there staring at it, but his mouth snaps shut when Sungyeol reaches out and takes his hand, and he flushes red again when Sungyeol brings it towards his dick. Sungyeol keeps his hand on the boy’s as he closes it around his erection. “Not too tight, okay? Different people like it different, but it’s better to start out looser and have them tell you to do it harder than to hurt them. Got it?”

The boy nods solemnly and lets Sungyeol guide him through the movements, face almost comically intent as he takes in every single thing Sungyeol says and shows him. Sungyeol eventually removes his own hand, and the boy’s eyes dart up to his, searching for reassurance, and after a nod from Sungyeol, he sucks in a deep breath and starts pumping again.

The boy is going to be good. _So_ good. He’s already good enough, noticing each tiny noise Sungyeol makes and figuring out what it means and adjusting his grip and rhythm accordingly. Sungyeol lets his head fall back against the pillow and revels in the feel of the boy’s strong hand around him. He knows it’s impossible, but he could swear he could feel the little bumps of the boy’s calluses against the hypersensitive skin of his dick, and just the thought is so hot he bucks up in the boy’s hand. The boy freezes, and when Sungyeol opens his eyes—he isn’t even sure when he closed them—the boy is looking at him with fear again. 

“That’s a good thing,” Sungyeol explains, trying to slow his heart rate. His voice cracks. “It’s okay.”

The boy’s fear has started to dissipate as suddenly as it appears, and he nods in satisfaction and starts up the rhythm again. _He believes what I tell him, now. He’s starting to believe it just like that,_ Sungyeol thinks, and his hips jerk up at the thought, though he doesn’t know why. 

“Remember what I said about mouths?” Sungyeol asks, and the boy just looks at him blankly for a moment. Sungyeol can tell the exact second when the boy understands and he can’t help but laugh at the look on the boy’s face. “It’s not so bad, I promise.” He has the niggling thought that _surely_ they would have at least explained about blowjobs before they sent him out, but he tucks it away and focuses on teaching the boy instead.

“Try licking first.”

The boy doesn’t look convinced, but he’s nothing if not obedient, so he does, dragging his heart-shaped tongue up the length of Sungyeol’s erection and drawing out a whine from Sungyeol. He looks pleased at the reaction— _finally figured out that those sorts of sounds are good things, then?_ —and then even more pleased at the longer moan when he licks at the head, and the expression is almost unbearably adorable. Sungyeol knows from talks with Sungjong that people used to believe in a higher power who had a certain measure of control over people’s lives (‘Just how much was the subject of much debate, hyung’) and Sungyeol can almost understand why right now—how else to explain how this kid came to him? The surprised, delighted laugh he lets out when Sungyeol’s dick bobs in response to one of his licks is better than entire nights he’s spent with some servicers.

“Be careful with your teeth,” is the first thing Sungyeol is sure to explain after telling the boy to take as much of him as he can into his mouth, but other than that he lets the boy experiment. He doesn’t make overly enthusiastic sounds or pretend that he’s really getting off on it the way some servicers do, but he’s so determined to do well that it’s its own kind of sexy. After telling him to use his hands to make up for what he can’t fit in his mouth, Sungyeol doesn’t have to give him much in the way of instructions, not when the boy is clearly so eager to learn all he can, so he can just lean back, head propped up against the pillow so he can see the boy’s lips stretched around his dick, and enjoy. He has to fight to keep from moving his hips too much, but it’s worth it to see the boy’s confidence growing. The boy hasn’t lost any of his intense concentration, and he keeps his eyes on Sungyeol’s face as he works. Other servicers have done that before, and Sungyeol’s either ignored it or felt irritated at something he sees as a ploy to convince him that they’re more invested in him than he knows they are. But this boy is doing it so that he can catalogue each and every hint that Sungyeol gives: he’s doing it to learn. 

It’s so hot—hotter than the boy’s mouth, than the wetness and the suction and the teasing of his tongue—that it’s far earlier than Sungyeol had expected when his orgasm slams into him. It hits him all at once and seizes every inch of him, his fingers and toes curling with the force of it, a long strangled groan tearing its way out of his throat without his permission. The boy jolts, choking and jerking back (Sungyeol feels the slightest scrape of his teeth and in the midst of his pleasure it only adds to the sensations), and it’s so clear how completely shocked he is that Sungyeol thinks he might try to hold his orgasm back if he could. But he can’t, so he continues to ride it out, back arching off the bed and still moaning as the boy gapes at him in confusion. 

He’s still twitching with the aftershocks when the boy swallows hard and starts to babble. “What was—I’m sorry—I didn’t—what—I’m sorry!” Pleasure’s still glittering through Sungyeol even as he sits up. He finds that he’s laughing, and he isn’t sure why, maybe at how good it felt, maybe at the confused surprise thick as Sungyeol’s spunk on the boy’s face. The laughter somersaults through him just like the orgasm had.

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” he manages, grabbing the edge of the bedspread and using it to wipe the boy’s face. It doesn’t even occur to him that he’s never once apologized to a servicer. “I thought you knew.” The boy’s looking so confused and surprised and innocent and even a little bit hurt and Sungyeol can’t stop laughing, cleaning the white off of the boy’s face and neck and shoulders. “That’s what happens when people have sex—when men have sex. Women are different. You didn’t know?”

The boy shakes his head, still so confused, and Sungyeol doesn’t give himself time to think about the ramifications of that. 

“It means you were doing it right. It’s the best part of sex, when you come like that. That’s what you’re working for, really. Normally most people would want you to swallow, and you probably should next time unless they tell you not to.” The boy’s eyebrows furrow at that. “I know it doesn’t taste all that great, but trust me, they’ll _really_ like it if you swallow. I don’t blame you for not doing it this time—you were surprised, weren’t you? I’m sorry—I really do try to warn before I go off like that, just so you’ll be ready, but you were so good I didn’t even feel it coming on.”

Wonder shines in the boy’s eyes, wonder and—something else. Something beautiful. “I was—good?”

“Yeah, baby, you were really good.” He doesn’t think about the endearment; it just comes out. He’s never been one to call any of the servicers anything, much less anything so sweet. But one or two of them have called him that, and he sort of liked it (at least the times when he could tell the servicers were actually enjoying themselves and weren’t just trying to flatter him), so it must have stuck in his brain, though he doesn’t know why it should pop out now of all times. 

But he finds that he’s glad it did, because the boy’s face crumples into a smile and he ducks his head, and _fuck_ , he’s so cute Sungyeol could die. When he’s smiling like that, he doesn’t look quite so flawless, so much like a work of art. He looks like a young boy being given a compliment, one that pleases him more than any compliment Sungyeol’s ever been given has pleased him. Sungyeol likes his face more like this than he does when he’s being intense, more even than he liked the sight of the boy’s lips red and swollen around his dick. He leans forward and kisses the boy, and after a moment of surprise, the boy kisses him back, a hint of saltiness still lingering on his lips and in the crevices of his mouth. 

“Hey—want to know how it feels?”

The boy cocks his head in confusion, another ridiculously adorable gesture. 

“To come like that. Want to know how it feels? It’ll help you when you do it for other people, knowing what they’re feeling.” At least, that’s why Sungyeol tells himself he’s offering.

The boy’s eyes go wide—they keep _doing_ that, and each time they do, something knots tighter in Sungyeol’s belly—and his lips part. “Me—do like—like that?”

Sungyeol can’t seem to stop laughing with this kid. “Yeah, just like that.”

“And it’ll feel—good?”

“It feels so good, baby. Better than you can imagine. Want to?”

The boy still looks like he doesn’t really believe Sungyeol’s actually offering—and like he doesn’t know if he really wants to do it—but he nods, and so Sungyeol reaches out and helps him out of his pants.

He’s barely even started getting hard, and that would bother Sungyeol, would insult him, except that this is the boy’s first time and he had to be so scared and he was so concentrated on Sungyeol’s every instruction and reaction that it’s almost no wonder his own body hasn’t reacted yet. It’s got to be incredibly overwhelming. Sungyeol eases him back onto the bed and starts pressing kisses to his chest again, his hand moving down to wrap around the boy’s dick. At the first touch, the boy jumps, letting out a strangled cry, and Sungyeol pops up to press a kiss to his nose. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”

The boy has completely tensed up, staring down at his steadily hardening dick like he’s never seen it before. “It feels—it feels—“ He shakes his head, like he can’t think of anything to say, and Sungyeol laughs and kisses his mouth. “It’s just going to feel better.”

Sungyeol doesn’t spend much time with fooling around. For some reason all he wants in the world at the moment (well, almost all—he’s still got the image of thrusting into this boy’s amazing ass lingering in the back of his mind) is to show this kid how good he can feel, and to show it to him as soon as possible. So as soon as the boy is half-hard, he slides down and lays an arm across the boy’s hips to hold him in place—he knows now how the boy tends to react to things—and takes him into his mouth. 

Sungyeol actually has given blowjobs to most of the male servicers—at least the ones after he met his teacher-girl. Usually as a sort of foreplay before he fucks them; they relax so much better into penetration when they’ve felt good first. He rarely mouths them all the way to completion, instead jerking them off while he fucks them. But right now he intends to do this right. Like the boy had done for him.

The boy does indeed try to fly up off the bed when he first feels Sungyeol’s mouth on him, and it’s only Sungyeol’s ready arm that keeps him from thrusting right up into Sungyeol’s mouth. His fingers immediately curl into the bedspread, clawing desperately for something to hold onto. With each suck, he tenses up more and more till he’s practically vibrating, squirming and wriggling, his legs jerking around a bit like he’s about to come out of his body. The sounds he makes—a steady stream ranging from mewls to whines—are the most erotic thing Sungyeol’s ever heard. Sungyeol smiles around the boy’s throbbing erection, hand cupping his balls, breathing through his nose and smelling the clean musky scent the boy gives off. He’s beginning to get a little hard again and he works his hips in lazy circles against the mattress beneath him as he works at the boy. He’s started thrashing his head from side to side—he’s so easily overwhelmed—and one of his hands clutches at Sungyeol’s hair. Normally Sungyeol would put an end to that immediately—he isn’t going to have some servicer yanking his hair out by its roots—but the boy isn’t pulling, just holding on and it hurts a bit but not enough that Sungyeol can’t deal with it. Especially not when the boy’s noises are getting louder and louder, his writhing become more desperate, and then: “I—what is—I don’t know, I don’t—what am I—?”

Sungyeol sucks harder, massages the boy a bit harder, and then the boy’s letting out a sound Sungyeol has never heard before (each person makes unique sounds, he knows that, he knows it. But somehow this boy’s seem like something completely different) and he’s bowing off the bed and then Sungyeol’s mouth is flooded with salty liquid. 

As the boy comes apart, Sungyeol does something he’s never done before, not ever. He keeps his mouth in place as the boy ejaculates, keeps stroking him as best he can, and when the boy finally collapses onto the bed with a long, keening sound, Sungyeol swallows.

When Sungyeol drags himself up to the top of the bed, the haze over the boy’s eyes is so thick Sungyeol thinks he may just have abandoned his body entirely. He’s panting so hard Sungyeol is almost afraid he’s going to hurt himself, sweat running over the curves his muscles, and Sungyeol can see his fingers twitching in the bed sheets. 

“Hey,” Sungyeol says after a minute. He nudges the boy, who’s still staring at the ceiling with glazed eyes. “You okay?”

It takes the boy a long time to turn his head very slowly, longer still to focus his eyes on Sungyeol’s face. 

Sungyeol smiles in amusement, but he’s actually a bit concerned. “Hey, you in there?”

It’s then that Sungyeol realizes that the boy’s eyes aren’t just glazed, they’re wet. He sits upright in alarm, forgetting all about the half-hard dick between his own legs and the taste still lingering in his mouth. “Fuck! Are you okay? Did I hurt you?” He can’t think of anything he’d have done to hurt this boy—he’d been so careful about his teeth—but those are definitely tears sliding down the boy’s cheeks. 

The boy seems to come back to himself now and he sits up too, so fast that Sungyeol can practically see him get dizzy for a moment. “No! No, Sungyeol-ssi, you didn’t—“ He swipes at his face, brushing the tears away and bringing his wet fingertips in front of his eyes to stare at them for a moment. “No! It was—I don’t know why—I’m sorry!”

“It’s okay,” Sungyeol tells him, still a little unnerved by the tears. No one has cried in front of him since the girl with the birthmark. He doesn’t like it. That must show on his face because the boy starts bowing, which looks more than a little ridiculous when he’s sitting down and also naked. 

“I’m sorry—I’m sorry—I—“

Sungyeol catches him by the shoulders to stop the bowing. They’re slick with sweat under his hands, and it makes Sungyeol wonder how much he’ll sweat when they actually get to the fucking. “Hey, I said it was okay.” He forces himself to smile. “But you’re okay, right?” He doesn’t know why he’s concerned.

“Of course, Sungyeol-ssi!” The boy’s voice is a little huskier now, a bit strained, and it’s hot. 

“So you liked it okay?” He kind of hates himself for asking, but he also kind of resents that the boy hasn’t said anything about it being good. Sungyeol is _really good_ with his mouth, he knows he is. 

“’Okay?’” the boy echoes. “It was—it felt like—I don’t—I—“

The last of Sungyeol’s irritation melts away and he laughs again. So the kid was just overwhelmed. And not too good with words, apparently. But Sungyeol can tell by his face that the boy enjoyed it. Besides, he’d come, hadn’t he? And really hard, from what Sungyeol can tell. He remembers his first time, Woohyun’s mouth on him and how much _better_ it had been than his own hand. So good. So incredibly good.

And of course it had felt good for this boy, too. And of course he has trouble talking about it—he was a laborer, and they aren’t exactly known for their eloquence. He’s probably not all that smart to begin with, and it’s his first time. Sungyeol can afford to be charitable. “You ready for real sex now?” His teacher-girl had scolded him for calling penetration ‘real sex’ (‘That’s not how it works, Sungyeol-ssi’), but in his mind it is. 

The boy’s recovered, too, the last of his tears completely gone, curiosity taking their place. “Does it—does it feel like that?”

“Better,” Sungyeol says. “Where’s the lube?”

He gets the boy half-hard again with his hand before he has him flip over so Sungyeol can reach his ass. Usually he likes to have the servicers prepare themselves, likes to watch them, but if the kid’s experience thus far is any indication, he has no clue how to do it. Sungyeol feels a surge of irritation that those in charge would send this boy out like this, totally ignorant when it comes to sex, and then feels angrily smug and glad that he’s the one who got the boy first—at least he’ll teach him how to do it all properly. 

The boy’s ass is a wonder. He flexes it when Sungyeol runs his hands over it, makes little gasping sounds, and it’s so appealing that Sungyeol kind of wants to take a bite out of it. So he does. Not a hard bite, of course, but the boy still jumps and lets out a little shriek, and Sungyeol is laughing as he slicks up his fingers and eases one inside.

The boy tenses up like a rope jerked taut, of course. Sungyeol had known he would. “You have to relax,” he says. “Really, it’ll feel so much better if you just let it happen. I promise it won’t hurt.” Anal sex can hurt, of course, Sungyeol knows that. Especially if the one being penetrated isn’t prepared. But Sungyeol doesn’t have any interest in that kind of pain in bed—spankings and such are one thing, but once you get to the actual fucking, it’s no fun if anyone’s hurting. So he always makes sure that the person he’s penetrating is completely ready. It probably doesn’t always feel amazing for them—though Sungyeol likes to think he’s gotten good enough that most of the time it does—but he knows that he’s never made any of them hurt (at least since his teacher-girl. He doesn’t like to think about the ones before her). 

He can tell how hard the boy is trying to relax, but he doesn’t do a very good job of it, so it takes Sungyeol a while to get his finger well and truly inside. He keeps reminding himself not to think about how tight the boy is—a _virgin_ , and for the first time Sungyeol understands the appeal—and mostly manages not to. He takes significantly more prep than any other servicer Sungyeol has ever been with, and it’s kind of annoying how long it takes, but he’s determined to be thorough and so he takes all the time it requires. The boy is trying to smother the little noises he’s making by burying his head in the pillow and he’s only relaxed a little bit, still sweating buckets. By the time Sungyeol gets four fingers in, he’s whining though, and starts to move his hips a little bit with Sungyeol’s rhythm. Sungyeol can tell he doesn’t love it yet, but he doesn’t seem to be in any pain, either, so that’s good enough. 

He removes his fingers and smacks the boy’s glorious ass. “Okay, flop over.”

The boy does, wincing a bit and looking a little dazed and Sungyeol knows he must be trying to get used to the new feeling of lack where he’d never noticed it before. Sungyeol uses a bit more lube to stroke himself to readiness—something that he’d also usually get the servicer to do, but it’s just easier to do it himself this time—and pulls the boys legs apart. He’s got really great legs, too. 

“You ready?” he asks, and he’s never asked that before. He can tell when they’re ready—by the slickness between a woman’s vaginal lips, by the easiness with which he can slide his fingers into an opening—and it’s their job to be ready. But he asks this time.

The boy nods, of course, but he doesn’t look like he’s ready at all. Still, Sungyeol is certain he can make him feel good, so he climbs on top of him, his narrow hips falling into place between the boy’s legs. The boy makes a sort sudden noise like he’s about to ask something, but then stop himself. 

Sungyeol pauses. “What were you going to say?” The boy looks abashed and ducks his head. “Come on. Out with it.”

“I—it’ll feel good?” The boy’s voice is barely audible. “For me, too?”

Sungyeol feels like he should be a bit annoyed at the boy’s lingering nervousness, but maybe he’s just too caught up in anticipation. “I promise,” he says, and then he pulls the boy’s legs up around his waist and starts to ease inside.

He’s never gone this slow before. It’s hard to do, so hard to keep himself from thrusting forward or at least going a little faster, his arms trembling a bit with exertion, but the boy’s legs had clamped around his waist as soon as he tried to push inside and his face is all screwed up—not in pain, but something else—and so Sungyeol makes himself go slowly. The boy pants against his shoulder, little whines coming out now and then, and Sungyeol focuses his whole mind on chanting _slow slow slow slow_. 

Finally, when he’s fully seated and can’t stand it any longer, he lets his hips start to pump. Again, slowly, but the boy is so incredibly tight that he almost isn’t capable of more at the moment. The boy makes little grunting noises and when Sungyeol looks down at him, his face is flushed and his brow furrowed. “Move with me,” Sungyeol says, voice strained. “It’ll be better.”

It takes the boy a few tries, but he eventually has his hips moving in the same rhythm as Sungyeol’s. There isn’t a hint of pain on his face, but Sungyeol can tell it still feels mostly weird for him. He’s loosening up a bit, though, so Sungyeol lets himself move faster, now panting hard himself—the boy feels _so good_ around him, and the legs looped around his hips and the flawless face below him just add to the overall effect. Sungyeol loses himself in the rhythm, in the unbelievable pleasure of moving in and out of this boy’s body. Fuck, he really could do this for the rest of his life, Sunggyu’s jokes aside.

The boy starts grasping at the comforter beneath him again, and one of the jerks of his arm knocks into Sungyeol’s arm, almost tipping him over and making him grunt as he falls out of his rhythm. The boy’s eyes fly up to Sungyeol’s as though scared he’s going to get in trouble, but Sungyeol just breathes out a little laugh. “Put your arms around my neck. That’ll give you something to hold onto.” The boy looks hesitant, but he slowly reaches up and puts his arms around Sungyeol’s neck, bringing their bodies into even closer contact, and the feel of his smooth, slick skin against Sungyeol’s, the feel of his half-hard cock bobbing against Sungyeol’s belly makes everything even better.

Sungyeol rests his nose just behind the boy’s ear, feeling the boy’s pants against his cheek, the tiny little noises he’s making that wouldn’t be audible otherwise. His hair smells good, even sweating so hard, and Sungyeol’s never hated the smell of sex anyway. Now that the boy’s used to the fucking, Sungyeol starts to swivel his hips, searching for what will make the boy feel good.

He’s actually really surprised the boy isn’t touching himself, but maybe he doesn’t think he’s allowed to. But it doesn’t matter. Sungyeol knows that most people don’t come from penetration of any kind alone, but he knows about prostates, too, and he’s determined to drive this boy crazy with what he can do. He’s done it before, plenty of times, bringing off the servicer by his own skills. He can do it again. 

It takes him a while to find it, but the pleasure’s so intense the whole time that he doesn’t even mind. Sungyeol’s gotten good over the years at making sex last; at first he’d shoot off embarrassingly early, but he’s built up his endurance and now he can go for quite some time. But he thinks he won’t last as long as he usually does, not with how tight this boy is, not with the little sounds he’s making, not with the constant thought thrumming in the back of his mind that _I’m his first. I’m showing him first how good it can feel, what his body can do. No one else will ever show him like I am_. But Sungyeol is _going_ to make sure he gets the boy to come too—first or at the same time, it doesn’t matter. And when Sungyeol swivels his hips a particular way and the boy lets out a loud cry, Sungyeol smiles.

Now that he’s found the boy’s sweet spot, it isn’t hard to keep at it. Normally, he’d tease a bit, try to draw this out, bring his servicer to the brink and back a few times before letting him fall over. But this is the boy’s first time and he keeps crying out every time Sungyeol hits him in just the right way, and Sungyeol can feel the boy’s dick hardening between them. 

“What—what—“ Sungyeol wouldn’t be able to hear the question hidden in the boy’s gasps if his ear weren’t right up against the boy’s mouth. He raises his head and smiles down at the boy’s wide eyes, pupils swallowing up the irises. 

“It’s good, right?”

The boy can’t even seem to answer, but his arms and legs are so tight around Sungyeol that Sungyeol doesn’t really need him to. He lowers his head and kisses the boy, and the boy’s eagerness in returning the kiss makes his chest tighten. He’s making those same small noises into the kiss, but they’re growing louder with each thrust of Sungyeol’s hips, and eventually the pace of Sungyeol’s hips grows so frantic that he can’t keep up the kissing and their mouths fall apart. The boy’s hips are moving as determined as Sungyeol’s own now, and he doesn’t seem to be trying to keep himself from making noises anymore, because they’re loud now, whine and cries and moans, and Sungyeol can feel his orgasm creeping up on him from the tips of his toes and fingers and through his whole body. It lurks in waiting, only willpower holding it back, and Sungyeol thrusts harder and then all of the sudden the boy cries out and Sungyeol feels the boy’s fingernails dig into his back and the spurt of the boy’s come against his belly and the boy keeps clinging to him, still pumping his hips and moaning. 

And then Sungyeol lets go.

When he comes back to himself, every cell of him still tingling with the aftershocks, he pulls out of the boy and collapses onto the bed beside him. The boy is still gasping beside him and for a while they lie there staring at the ceiling, side by side and panting, trying to recover. Sungyeol notes distantly that the overhead lights have all gone out, though when that happened he wouldn’t be able to say. It could have happened while pleasure was ripping through him or it could have happened some time ago; he has no idea what time it is, how much time has passed since he first kissed this boy.

After a moment he becomes aware that the boy’s gasping has changed, and as soon as he does, he can hear the boy flipping over onto his side and then burying his face in the pillow. 

He’s crying again.

Sungyeol feels so emptied by his orgasm that it takes a great deal of energy to push himself up onto his elbow (and more than he has left to be annoyed, so he doesn’t bother). “Hey. Why are you crying?”

The boy doesn’t say anything, but his shoulders shake a little more. Sungyeol runs a still-quivering hand through his hair and scoots closer.

“Hey.” He pulls the boy over with a firm hand on his shoulder till he can look down into the boy’s face. 

In the glow of the low safety lights that rim the room, Sungyeol can just see him. He isn’t sobbing, but tears are definitely falling, and Sungyeol thinks even in the brightest fluorescent lights he wouldn’t be able to figure out the expression in the boy’s eyes. 

“Why are you crying?” He knows he doesn’t sound soft or kind but he hopes he doesn’t sound impatient either. Even if he is, a little bit. 

“I don’t know,” the boy whispers.

Sungyeol makes a face, unconvinced. “Why are you crying?”

“I don’t know,” the boy insists, voice still quiet. “I really don’t know, Sungyeol-ssi, I’m sorry, I really—“

Sungyeol sighs, interrupts. “It’s okay. I must have been really…intense for you.”

The boy wipes his tears away with his fists like a little kid and looks up steadily at Sungyeol, breath still hitching a bit. “Was—?” He stops, bites his lip.

The whole being afraid to say anything is getting old. “You can ask me whatever you want. I’m not going to get mad at you.”

“Was—was that good, too?”

Sungyeol tries to hide his smile. “Was it good for you?”

The boy nods so hard that Sungyeol’s worried his head’s going to tumble off his shoulders. 

“It was good for me, too,” Sungyeol says. And then, because he believes in being honest, he adds, “One of the best I ever had.” The echoes of it are still waving through his body, that orgasm. Maybe that’s why Sungyeol can’t think of a better one he’s ever had—his mind’s still too foggy. It has to be, because it doesn’t make sense for some kid with no experience to be better than all the skilled servicers he’s had. Unless maybe that’s what the fuss about virgins was? But Sungyeol doesn’t think so.

The boy’s face folds up again into that happy grin, and Sungyeol leans down and kisses his nose before he can think about it. Then he stands up. “Come on, let’s get in bed properly.” The boy stumbles to his feet—he’s anything but graceful—and Sungyeol strips the comforter off the bed and uses it to clean the boy’s come off his own skin, then wipes the boy down with it as well before tossing it into the far corner. Then he pulls the sheet down and gestures the boy under it. “Are we going to sleep now?” He clambers into it like a little kid and Sungyeol climbs in beside him.

“We’re going to rest a bit,” Sungyeol says. “Guys have to rest for a little while after they’ve come.”

“Oh.” He’s quiet for a moment as Sungyeol pulls the sheet up over them, and his foot brushes against Sungyeol’s. “Girls don’t?”

“Not most girls, no.” Have they taught this kid nothing at _all_? What kind of job are they doing?

“Oh.” They’re silent for a minute and then the boy says, “Your bed is really soft.”

That’s a new one. “Your bed isn’t like this?”

“No, it’s—“ The boy stops again, and Sungyeol knows why. They probably aren’t supposed to talk about anything in their lives to the one they’re servicing. Of course those would be the rules. Sungyeol’s never minded that, but for once he finds he’s curious.

“You can tell me,” he says. “I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”

The boy is quiet as though he’s trying to figure out if he should trust Sungyeol and then he says, “I thought the servicers’ beds were soft. But this is way softer than that.”

Sungyeol hadn’t really thought about his own bed being particularly soft. But servicers’ beds must be harder. And laborers’ harder than that. Which maybe means that administrators’ beds are the softest of all. He’d never thought about it, really.

Beside him, the boy makes a very small happy sound and then Sungyeol feels him cuddling down into the mattress. The sound, for some reason, rattles a thought loose in his mind.

“It won’t always be that good.”

“What?”

“The sex,” Sungyeol clarifies, the words coming out more haltingly than he’s used to. “It won’t always be that good. For you.”

The boy doesn’t say anything.

“Most people won’t bother to try to make it good for you.” He knows, because he and Sungjong talked about it after his teacher-girl, and Sungjong had confirmed it. “Some of the guys might want you to top, and that will feel good for you. And when you’re with women, it’ll feel good, too, though maybe some of them won’t want you to come inside them. But with other guys…probably most of the time it won’t feel particularly good.” He knows that he should warn him, should tell him that it will probably hurt with some of them, with guys who don’t take the time to prepare him properly. But somehow he can’t bring himself to tell this boy that other people might hurt him.

Still, the boy doesn’t say anything. 

They sleep, for a while, and then he wakes the boy up and fucks him again. It’s just as good this time, and easier, of course, and the sounds the boy makes are just as enthralling and the feel of him against Sungyeol’s body is just as good as before. The boy doesn’t cry afterwards, and Sungyeol thinks he can tell the boy is paying closer attention this time, trying to overcome his own pleasure enough to figure out what Sungyeol’s doing and what is required of him. This boy will be good, Sungyeol thinks again. One of the very best, because he’s such a fast learner. This good and with no training? He’ll be in demand in no time.

Sungyeol doesn’t like that thought. Likes even less the thought that others won’t bother to make him feel good. He falls asleep again and dreams of faceless men making the boy cry and then slapping him and making him sleep on the floor, and when he wakes up to the sound of his alarm, for a moment he doesn’t know where he is. He’s never felt that way before.

“Try…try not to cry,” Sungyeol says as the boy pulls his clothes on. “With anyone else. They won’t like it.”

The boy looks down at his bare feet and Sungyeol follows his gaze. Even his feet are beautiful. “I won’t, Sungyeol-ssi.”

Sungyeol steps closer to him and takes him by the shoulders again. “You did really, really good, okay? I’ll put a note in your file that you did really good. Just…pay attention to what they teach you. You’ll be okay.” He looks down at the boy’s face, even younger-looking this morning, with creases from the pillow on his cheeks and sleep in his eyes, his hair mussed, and he wonders if he’s lying. 

The boys eyes are shining with something as he looks up at him. “I will, Sungyeol-ssi.” And then he hesitates, looks down again.

“I told you you could ask me anything,” Sungyeol says, squeezing his shoulders.

It takes the boy a moment to raise his head, and when he does he looks at Sungyeol through his eyelashes. “Will I—will I see you again?”

The thought hadn’t occurred to Sungyeol. He doesn’t see servicers more than once, and none of them have ever asked to see him again. The question unnerves him. “I don’t know,” he says lamely, because he can’t figure out anything else to say.

The boy’s face falls, a little bit, but he nods and then smiles up at Sungyeol. It’s a different kind of smile, not the face-crumpling kind. “Thank you, Sungyeol-ssi.”

After the door closes behind the boy, Sungyeol walks slowly over to sit on the edge of his bed. He stares at the wall for a very long time and can't shake the inexplicable thought that what he just did will end up hurting that boy more than anyone else ever could.


	3. three

“For God’s sake, hyung, why are you being so weird?”

Sungyeol looks up from the dinner he’s picking at and into Sungjong’s frustrated face. “Don’t you say I’m always weird?”

“You’re being extreme even for you, and it’s driving me crazy.” Sungyeol thinks Sungjong is really cute when he pouts, or at least he usually does. Right now he doesn’t even notice.

He snorts instead, spearing a lump of meat with the end of his chopstick. His appetite seems to have left him; he’s felt a vague uneasiness in his stomach ever since he met the boy—maybe he caught some sort of laborer sickness from him. “So sorry to disturb you, Sungjong-ssi.”

“Okay, that’s it.” Sungjong slams his chopsticks down on the table, stands up and reaches out to grab Sungyeol’s arm. “Come on.”

“Hey! I’m not through with that yet!”

“Whatever, hyung, you know you’re not going to actually eat it; you’ve barely picked at your food for the past two weeks.”

Sungyeol protests as Sungjong drags him through the cafeteria and down the hall to the lounge, drawing curious (and scandalized) looks from everyone they pass. Sungyeol’s used to people staring: he and Sungjong are known for being the weird ones, touching each other more than is usual—though they don’t do it that often—and drawing gazes with laughter and other extreme emotions. (‘Friendships are discouraged, hyung. They distract from study and working partnerships. Probably not one person in a thousand has a friend as close as we are, and we probably only get away with it because of how valuable I am. We’ve always been strange because of that. Of course people stare.’)

Sungjong doesn’t let go of his arm until they’re in the corner of the lounge that they usually inhabit, though they’ve spent far less time here since Sungjong got permission to let Minha move in with him. Sungyeol remembers complaining about that—whining, Sungjong had insisted. “You get to have sex every single night if you want and you’re not even an administrator! It’s not fair!”

“Oh my God, hyung, it’s not just about sex, it’s about _her_. Get your head out of your ass.”

Sungyeol hadn’t understood that response at all, and he’d kept up the whining for a while—he hadn’t missed that Sungjong hadn’t corrected him about having sex every day (which to Sungyeol’s mind meant he must). Sungyeol knows that Sungjong is valuable, that the administrators think he’s irreplaceable, so it’s no real surprise that Sungjong had been allowed to keep Minha. But that doesn’t mean Sungyeol isn’t jealous. Not that he’d want just one person in his bed. But still.

Sungyeol flops down into the chair he always uses and sulks up at Sungjong, who has recovered his dignity and sits down slowly and gracefully, crossing his legs and flipping his hair out of his eyes when he’s settled. “Now. Tell me what’s going on.”

Sungyeol bites at a cuticle, glaring down at the table between them, the chessboard they sometimes use folded neatly in the center with the box of pieces on top. He’s been going back and forth in his head about talking to Sungjong about the things that have been darting around in his mind the last two weeks. He’s still not sure whether he wants to. It feels like too much, his thoughts too raw. Everything too…what was that word Sungjong had used that once when talking about Minha? The one he’d had to explain the meaning of because Sungyeol had never heard it before? Oh, yeah. Personal.

“What do you know about laborers?”

Sungjong blinks, and Sungyeol can’t regret that he just blurted that out, not when he so rarely gets to see Sungjong sincerely surprised like this. He smiles smugly at the look on Sungjong’s face, feeling satisfied in a way he hasn’t in weeks. He can almost forget about the small whirlpool in the pit of his stomach.

“Hyung,” Sungjong says slowly, “when have you even _seen_ a laborer? Why do you care?” He’s not even bothering to hide how perplexed he is, which is saying something, because Sungjong is always so careful about how he presents himself.

Sungyeol bites the string of his cuticle and spits it away, leg jogging as he does. 

“Hyung, you’ve never once asked me about laborers, and now you’re saying your weird mood has something to do with them?”

Sungyeol kicks at the leg of the table between them. “There was this boy.”

Sungjong’s eyes grow wider and wider with each word out of Sungyeol’s mouth, but now that he’s thinking about the boy again, Sungyeol can’t even enjoy the expression. It sounds so surreal now—taking the laborer boy’s virginity. It had been a surreal night, but it seems even stranger and less believable now. He can still remember the boy’s face, his taste, his voice, his tightness, his skin, so so clearly. But at the same time, it seems like the whole thing must have been a dream. It couldn’t have possibly happened. Things like that _don’t_ happen. 

“Hyung.” Sungjong’s voice has never sounded so strained. “Hyung, why didn’t you send his back?” His voice rises an octave or two. “You should have sent him back.”

“I know, I know. But I couldn’t.” He still doesn’t know why but—he couldn’t.

“No, hyung—you don’t understand—you _should have sent him back_.”

Sungyeol shifts. “I didn’t get in trouble, though.”

And he hadn’t. He’d been called into his life counselor’s office the next day, which hadn’t been a surprise, though he’d been jumpy all day during work, infuriating Sunggyu even more than usual, and by the time he was summoned to the office, his hands had been sweating and he’d almost bit through his lip.

His counselor had looked troubled, which hadn’t set him at ease, but in that moment, something had taken over him and he’d been totally convincing: shocked that there was anything different about the night before than about his usual servicer visits, insisting that he had no idea he was the boy’s first, that the boy had tried to tell him something but that he’d commanded him to be quiet, that yes he’d seemed a bit inexperienced but Sungyeol thought that was just an act to please him. Sungyeol had been abjectly apologetic, insisting that he would have sent him back immediately had he had any idea. His counselor’s face had cleared and she’d assured him that she would take care of it and he wouldn’t be bothered again. It was a managerial mistake, she’d told him, and the manager had been dealt with. By the time the meeting ended, Sungyeol had felt giddy with triumph, proud in a way he’d never been before at the convincingness of his act. He’d been so full of that satisfaction that he’d almost forgotten to ask about the boy, remembering only when he was about to stand up and leave.

“He isn’t your concern, Sungyeol-ssi. There is no need to think of him again.” Her mouth twitched with what Sungyeol realized was amusement—sarcasm? He recognized it from Sungjong—only after he was walking back to his room. “Unless you’re going to request him again.”

“ _You_ might not have gotten in trouble, but you could have caused real trouble for him, hyung,” Sungjong says, voice breaking through Sungyeol’s reminiscing. 

Sungyeol’s head flies up. “You think he’ll be in trouble?” He’s tried not to think about that. His life counselor was right: the boy wasn’t any of his concern. And yet he can’t help but remember that he’d told the boy that he wouldn’t get in trouble. What if that was a lie? There’s no bigger offense than a lie. Nothing. God, the stomach-discomfort is back. And worse than before.

“I don’t know whether they’ll punish him, hyung—maybe not, since you said you didn’t give him a chance to tell him.” He brushes his hair out of his intense eyes. “But hyung, if he was as innocent as you say, then there’s no way he was meant to be sent to you.”

“I know _that_ , Sungjong.” Does Sungjong think he’s stupid? Just because he doesn’t know all that much about how humans used to live doesn’t mean he’s an idiot. He’d like to see Sungjong perform acid-base titration—Sungyeol was doing that when he was ten. 

“No, hyung. You don’t understand.” Sungyeol is getting really, really tired of hearing that. “Servicers are never sent out like that, without training. Even if he was promoted from the labor level, they’d take the time to teach him as much as they could in the space of a couple of months before they sent him out. The first month would be basic physical transformation: getting rid of any scars or blemishes, finding the best hair styles and makeup, getting rid of unwanted hair, working on their skin’s softness and muscle definition if they need to. The next month or two would be education, the basics of sex, the best ways to please those they service. And yes, it would only be the basics because they wouldn’t have time for more. Regular servicers spend their entire childhoods being trained in these things; they know everything there possibly is to know, every detail anyone could ask for. The ones who are promoted from labor level wouldn’t have time to learn all of those things, but they’d learn the most important things. They definitely would know how sex worked. Definitely.”

That’s what Sungyeol had thought. That’s the way it had to be, right? “But Sungjong, he clearly didn’t know.” He can’t even think of the right way to say this. “If you’d seen him—there was no way they’d told him anything at all. So how the hell did I end up with him?”

Sungjong leans forward, lowering his voice’s volume, though its tone remains as intense as his eyes. Sungyeol finds himself leaning forward too. “One of two things happened. Either he wasn’t meant to be sent out at all and someone made a very, very big mistake. Or he was meant to be sent to an administrator who…specially requested someone who didn’t know anything at all. In which case the mistake was even bigger.” 

Oh. Well. That makes sense. “Someone else wanted to teach him?” Sungyeol can kind of understand that. There had been something really special about showing the boy what his body could do, about how good sex could feel. He can understand why someone else might specially request to do that.

The look Sungjong gives him is a bit contemptuous. “For certain values of ‘teach.’”

Sungyeol doesn’t really understand what that means. “Do you think he got in trouble? It wasn’t his fault.” Although maybe it kind of was. Sungyeol had offered him a choice, after all, and he hadn’t asked to leave. But nobody else knows that. Except Sungjong, now.

“I don’t know, hyung. I think the servicers are only punished when they don’t please the one they’re servicing.” Sungjong’s mouth purses like he’d tasted something bitter. “Did he—did the boy please you?” 

Sungyeol lets out a breathy laugh. “Yeah.”

“And you put a note in his file?”

There’s always a chance to provide feedback about the servicers—rating them, noting special talents, things like that. Sungyeol had been fastidious about it for the first year or so after he started having sex, thinking of it almost as an extension of their visits, but these days he mostly just sticks a number rating in the file the next day—always a high one, since the managers know what he likes. But he’d made sure to be very clear about how much this boy had pleased him. Very clear. “Yeah.”

“Then maybe he didn’t. But the manager who sent him out—that person _definitely_ got punished.” Sungjong shivers as he says it, but Sungyeol barely pays any attention; he doesn’t care about the manager. It’s the boy he can’t get out of his mind. He lays a hand across his churning stomach.

Sungjong’s sharp eyes seem to pick up on that. “You’re really concerned about this boy, aren’t you?” he asks, tilting his head to the side and studying Sungyeol with eyes that have taken on a gleam that Sungyeol knows he gets when he’s discovered something particularly fascinating in his studies.

It makes Sungyeol feel a little bit exposed. He shrugs. “He was…really responsive.”

Sungjong gives him a disdainful look. “Of course he was. You’re probably the first person who’s touched him since he was out of the creche.”

“ _What_?”

Sungjong sighs impatiently. “Hyung, laborers don’t touch. Ever. Servicers barely do—well, the one who aren’t in sex service. They’re touched while they’re still too small to take care of themselves, of course, just like we were when we were still in the creche—changing diapers and feedings and just enough affection to keep them developing normally. But as soon as they’re moved out of the creche and into the dorms, the touching stops absolutely. They probably don’t even remember it afterwards. Servicers touch on rare occasions: it’s discouraged, heavily, though it isn’t completely unknown. But laborers? They’ll be punished if they touch. Seriously punished.”

Sungyeol had known that. Suspected it, really—there was no way he could know something like that. But his subconscious had taken note of the boy’s reactions, of how scared he was at the beginning whenever Sungyeol touched him, of how he reacted far too strongly to even the lightest touch. Of how he’d cried after he came. The whirlpool in his stomach is becoming a hurricane.

“And if they touch themselves?” The words scrape their way out as if Sungyeol’s throat is lined with sandpaper.

Sungyeol gives him a pitying look. Normally it would piss Sungyeol off, but right now he’s too busy trying to control his roiling stomach. “You mean masturbation? Oh, hyung. They don’t do that. Their food is filled with chemicals that keeps their sex drives under control—which means ridding them of them altogether. I guarantee your laborer boy has never so much as had a wet dream. It probably took the majority of the month after they promoted him for his system to rid itself of the chemicals.”

Hearing that makes Sungyeol even more sick. _Why_ does it make him sick? Why does he feel any way but vaguely curious about how the different levels live? This is the way things work. So why does he keep seeing the boy’s wide eyes and feeling like he’s going to throw up?

“I think I may have caught some germs,” he croaks. He should probably go the infirmary. Sickness is rare—Sungjong’s never visited the infirmary for any reason other than his physicals, but Sungyeol is far weaker. He gets sick almost once a year, which is unheard of. (‘Most people will only get sick once or twice in their lives, hyung. You are a marvelous example of the persistent weakness of the human body, despite humanity’s attempts to control the environments we live in.’)

“You haven’t caught any germs.” Sungjong sounds halfway between annoyed at Sungyeol’s stupidity and sympathetic towards his feelings. “You’ve just had one of those moments where your essential humanity asserts itself and reminds you that we aren’t supposed to live like this.”

Sungyeol folds his arms on the table, leans his sweaty head against them. “I don’t want to hear your anthropology bullshit, Sungjong.”

“That’s another example of your irrepressible humanity. Despite knowing that foul language could result in punishment, you still revert to it when you’re annoyed.”

“Shut up.”

Sungjong sighs and then Sungyeol feels his hand move to rest on his head. It feels good, but not good like it does when the servicers touch him. It’s different, how Sungjong’s touches feel, and he likes it, even if he doesn’t want it to happen too often because it makes him feel…fragile. “Look, hyung. Your laborer probably didn’t get in trouble, not if you were so good about his file note. They’re probably training him as we speak in all the ways of sex.”

“I already taught him,” Sungyeol says, rolling his head on his arm. He wants a shower.

Sungjong laughs. “Oh, please, hyung. You barely taught him anything. But you don’t need to worry anymore, okay? I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

“But earlier you said I ‘really, really should have sent him back, hyung,’” he imitates Sungjong’s breathy voice. He rolls his head so he can open one eye and look up at Sungjong. “Why did you say that if he’s going to be fine?”

Sungjong sighs. “I wasn’t meaning in terms of punishment. Your cover story was pretty good.” Sungyeol notices that Sungjong hasn’t even scolded him about his lie. In the far corner of his mind, he wonders if that means that Sungjong’s more comfortable with lying than he should be—and if he is, what he’s been lying about. He tucks the thought away, though. It’s scary, and he’s pretty sure Sungjong doesn’t lie to him. Pretty sure.

“Why then?”

“I was thinking of the manager. That person would have got in far less trouble if you’d sent the boy back before anything happened.”

“Who cares?”

Sungjong pushes Sungyeol’s head away. “Don’t you even see anyone around you?” he asks, exasperated. 

“What does that mean? I see everyone. I have excellent eyesight. 15/15.”

“But the servicers. Other professionals you don’t interact with. Do you even care about them?”

“Why should I?” What the hell is Sungjong talking about now? Why would anyone care about people in another level? This is a very stupid game, whatever it is.

Sungjong sighs. “Wishful thinking.”

“Wishing what?” Wishes are stupid. There’s no room for them. Why is Sungjong talking about wishes?

“That your essential humanity would assert itself more. Stop groaning, hyung. I guess I should at least be impressed that you care about the boy, despite the entirety of the social structure brainwashing you from birth to make sure that you don’t.”

Sungyeol blocks out everything after the word ‘boy.’ He rarely listens to Sungjong’s speeches even when he’s feeling good, and there’s no way he’d be able to decipher them the way he feels right now if he wanted to do so. “I don’t…’care’ about him.” The word feels strange in his mouth, far too solid and heavy on his tongue.

“Alright, hyung,” Sungjong says in that annoying tone of voice that tells Sungyeol he’s thinking he knows far more than him again.

“I don’t care about him. I just…” He raises his head, looks at Sungjong, and shrugs helplessly. “I told him that he’d be okay.”

Sungjong’s eyes soften. “It wasn’t a lie if you thought you were telling the truth.”

Now it’s Sungyeol’s turn to level a contemptuous look. “Yes, it was.”

“I’m sure he’ll be okay, hyung.”

That doesn’t make Sungyeol feel any better. First thing when he gets up he’s going to the infirmary. The nurse there knows him by name. She has a pleasant smile and all kinds of pills that make him feel better when he’s sick. “And I didn’t—I didn’t tell him that the others might…hurt him.”

Sungjong looks very serious now. “Yes. I know. It would be hard to say that.”

Sungyeol snorts.

“That’s the other reason I wish you’d sent him back.”

Sungyeol can barely get the question out. “Why?”

“You probably gave him false expectations of what his life will be like. It’ll just make the next time harder for him. Most of those he services will use him for their pleasure without paying the slightest bit of attention to whether it hurts him or not. They won’t pay him any more attention than they would a pair of chopsticks. But you treated him like a person—or at least you tried to, though you probably weren’t very good at it and didn’t even know what you were doing. That could have…made him more vulnerable. He probably would have been better off if someone who wasn’t quite so…concerned about him had been his first.”

Sungyeol stands up, walks over to the trash receptacle in the corner, and vomits into it.

 

 

 

The nurse in the infirmary ends up quite bewildered at Sungyeol’s newfound illness since she can’t find anything wrong with him. Sungyeol lets her take his temperature and his blood pressure and his blood sugar and a thousand other small tests as she bustles around him trying to figure out what germs he’s caught. He lays on the crinkly paper on the bed and stares at the ceiling and tries not to think about other people hurting the boy. But the only other thing he can think about it what it would be like to have never had anyone touch you—to never touch yourself—not just no sex, but no Sungjong-touches and no jerking off in bed at night. He throws an arm over his eyes. 

The nurse is talking to herself as she reads the results of Sungyeol’s tests, muttering something about not knowing how she’s going to fill out the appropriate paperwork if she can’t even determine the cause of the illness.

“Don’t worry. It’s just my essential humanity asserting itself,” Sungyeol informs her without moving his arm. She ignores him and keeps bustling.

In the end she ends up giving him several pills and a liquid to swallow and sends him back to his apartment with instructions to return immediately if he isn’t feeling better in the morning. After the medicine, his stomach does indeed stop trying to twist itself into knots, but he still feels clammy and strange. He takes a hot shower and jerks off while thinking of Woohyun. He’s never going to jerk off while thinking of the boy.

He sleeps well, at least, and when he wakes up the next morning his skin feels too tight for his body, but he’s stopped sweating and his stomach feels like normal, so he just goes to work like always. He’s subdued, though, so subdued that Sunggyu keeps picking at him in that dry way of his and it takes all of Sungyeol’s concentration to ignore him. 

“Are you sick again? The nurse told me once that you hold the record for illnesses for the entire science department. Maybe the whole level, she said. I told her you also hold the record for most annoying in the entire science department. Maybe the whole level.”

Sungyeol shoots a glare at his sunbae then looks back at his beaker. It’s exactly the right shade of red. Usually Sungyeol feels the smallest glow of satisfaction when he gets something so absolutely right like this but right now he can’t quite manage it.

Sungjong doesn’t talk much at dinner, just watches him with solemn eyes, and encourages him to eat. Sungyeol chokes down as much as he can and pats Sungjong on the shoulder to reassure him as he heads back to his room. When he steps into the room and someone is there, it surprises him before he remembers that, oh, yeah, it’s his servicer-visit night.

The servicer bows low and Sungyeol slowly kicks off his shoes, studying him. He’s on the short side, but pretty enough that it doesn’t matter, his hair dyed a blonde that’s almost white, but it suits him. Sungyeol likes the almost fragile look of him, the line of his jaw. And there’s a fierceness to his eyes that makes Sungyeol think he’s probably used to people underestimating him because of his height. He waits patiently while Sungyeol shrugs off his jacket and heads towards the bathroom.

“I want to take a shower. Come on.”

This is his third visit from a servicer since the boy left him. The one right after the boy was a girl, tall and leggy with long shiny hair and one of the most perfect faces Sungyeol has ever seen. She’d been good, but she hadn’t quite been able to soothe Sungyeol’s restlessness. He enjoyed himself (he fell in love with the faces she made, pouts of all kinds), but he found himself requesting a boy for the next week. The one they sent was about as tall as Sungyeol but broader and more solidly built. He’d been quiet, even quieter than most, with a very somber face and strong hands, but Sungyeol had made him laugh at something he said and Sungyeol had fallen in love with his smile. He’d also been good, but he had no more luck at clearing Sungyeol’s mind. 

The boy tonight doesn’t manage it, either. They don’t kiss much in the shower because the boy’s so much shorter than it would strain Sungyeol’s neck to reach him, but his skin feels good against Sungyeol’s, his hands sliding soap and teasing over Sungyeol’s body, and his mouth is almost as hot as the water beating down on them. Sungyeol thrusts into his mouth, and just before he comes he hears his own voice echo inside his head _I know it doesn’t taste all that great, but trust me, they’ll really like it if you swallow._.

Once they’re dry and back in bed, Sungyeol takes things more slowly than he usually does. Kissing’s so much easier when they’re both laying down (and Sungyeol doesn’t compare this boy’s mouth to the laborer boy’s. He _doesn’t_ ) and the boy is of course willing to go as slow as Sungyeol wants. It’s not gentle, really, but Sungyeol takes his time, and maybe pays more attention to the boy’s pleasure than he usually would. 

“What’s your room like?” Sungyeol finds himself asking in the aftermath, when they’re both still breathing hard but haven’t started to drift off to sleep yet.

The boy hesitates, his brows furrowing. “I’m sorry, Sungyeol-ssi?” he says carefully, as though he’s not sure whether he heard the question correctly.

“Are you not allowed to tell me that?”

The boy’s mouth twists and Sungyeol can tell he’s trying to figure out what kind of a weirdo wants to know about his sleeping arrangements—and why. “I don’t know. No one’s ever said….”

“So tell me. Is it as big as mine?”

The boy is still giving him that confused look with his fierce eyes, but he says slowly, “Yeah, about. It doesn’t seem as big, though, because of the beds.”

“Beds? There’s more than one?”

The boy looks like he can’t decide whether to be annoyed or irritated but that he’s trying to keep both from showing. Sungyeol notes hazily that his questions must really be rattling this boy if he’s showing any emotion at all. Otherwise he would have pissed off someone he’s serviced long before now and been definitively taught how not to show them. “There’s eight.”

“Eight? In a room this big?” His room is spacious enough, lots of room for his own large bed and his sitting area and his desk and his little kitchenette that he rarely uses, and that’s not counting the bathroom that’s attached. But big enough for eight beds?

“Yes,” the boy answers, like he’s not sure whether his answer displeased Sungyeol.

“Like the dorms for little kids?” He remembers sharing a room with others when he was younger, before he hit puberty, and yeah, the space was probably about this size, but there were only three beds and there weren’t any desks.

“Yes?”

“Where are your sitting areas and stuff?” Surely they can’t fit them with eight beds.

“We don’t have those.”

Sungyeol had thought everyone post-puberty had sitting areas. Where do they spend their time when they aren’t sleeping or working? “You do have lounges, though, right?”

“Yeah, there’s a lounge.”

“Wow.” If he’d taken the time to imagine what servicers’ quarters were like—which he hasn’t—he would have imagined they were like his. Maybe smaller. And with a bed that wasn’t as soft. “So you have roommates. Is there a new guy in your room? One who used to be a laborer?”

The boy has been good at answering the questions so far, even if he’s been cautious about his answers and clearly uncomfortable with the line of questioning. But his eyes narrow at this question and his hand flexes against the bed sheets. “I don’t think—“

“No, sorry, forget I asked.” _Why **did** I ask?_

The boy relaxes a bit, though he still has a hint of wariness in his eyes. “Yes, Sungyeol-ssi.”

“No, really. Forget about it. Okay?” Probably the servicers aren’t allowed to talk about anything they might see or hear when they’re working, but if this boy should say anything, it might cause problems for the laborer boy. And Sungyeol doesn’t know much, but he does know he doesn’t want that.

Besides, he wants this guy to remember him, just like he wants all the servicers to, but not because of this weird conversation. He forces a smile onto his face and flops over onto his belly, unleashing the force of that smile on the guy. “I sometimes get curious—I mean, you get to see our apartments but we never get to see yours. My sunbae says I should stop asking questions about things that don’t concern me, but sometimes I get a little carried away, you know?”

He prattles on, energetic and lighthearted and hopefully a little dumb—he has to convince this servicer that the questions hadn’t signified anything, that they’d been just basic curiosity, that they weren’t anything worth remembering. The need to accomplish that tingles through his body and he starts to feel the way he did when he was lying to his life counselor (he’s tried to avoid letting himself think about it in terms of lying. Sungyeol hates lies and they’re the worst offense and he’s never once lied to anyone, not even to get himself out of trouble, which he’s always gotten into more than anyone else he knows. But—but he had to lie this time. He had to): giddy and confident in a way he’s never been before, and as the servicer’s face relaxes into a smile and the tension leaks out of him and he starts to laugh at the things Sungyeol is saying, Sungyeol thinks he might just have succeeded, that maybe this servicer will go back home and never think of the weird conversation they just had.

(Sungyeol doesn’t think he’ll be able to forget himself though.)


	4. four

It’s another two service visits before Sungyeol can bring himself to click on the boy’s picture. He feels sick again doing it; there’s a part of him that thinks that if he requests the boy again, something he’s never done with any other servicer (except for that once with Woohyun, but it didn’t matter because he was already placed anyway), they’ll somehow _know_ and he and the boy will both be punished. He’s more than aware that that’s stupid: he’d sold his story absolutely and hasn’t heard another peep about it since. But he knows because Sungjong has told him that the administrators closely monitor any break in routine in anyone’s file, and surely this counts.

But he can’t stop himself. It’s eating him up, wondering about the boy. He doesn’t even know what he wants to find out, exactly. He trusts Sungjong that the boy probably wasn’t punished, and that should be the end of Sungyeol’s concern, right? What else does he want to know? He doesn’t let himself form any other questions in his mind, but his nights have been full of dreams of the boy’s tear-stained face, and he just knows that he has to _see_ him again. 

He and Sungjong haven’t talked about the boy or laborers or punishments or anything else again. Sungyeol can tell Sungjong wants to talk sometimes, his mouth pursing in that way it does when he’s thinking deeply about some anthropological subject, but Sungyeol just doesn’t want to talk about it, not even with Sungjong. Every time he thinks about it in a concrete way, he feels sick again. Maybe that’s what he’s hoping will happen when he sees the boy again: whatever is roiling in his stomach will be set at ease and he’ll be able to forget all about the boy and the questions he raised and just…go back to the way things were before. 

He knows, though, as soon as he walks into his room and sees the boy sitting on his couch again, that that won’t happen. The boy stands up quickly once again, but not shooting up as fast as he had last time when Sungyeol had thought he might fall over. This is the brisk movement of any servicer, respectful and polite, and Sungyeol tosses his briefcase in the direction of his desk instead of setting it down carefully as usual. 

The boy looks…different. His hair’s been trimmed, Sungyeol notes, a little shorter than it was last time Sungyeol saw him, which shouldn’t be surprising at all because of course the servicers have to get their hair trimmed just like the professionals do—well, not just like, because it’s even more important to them. If a professional goes a little too long without a trim, they might get sidelong glances for looking too shaggy, but servicers have to look perfect, of course, so their trims are probably never a day too late. Sungyeol had just never thought about it before.

But other than that, there’s nothing that’s really changed about him. He’s wearing the same clothes he had on before, the same ones every servicer wears, his feet bare and his shoes left perfectly lined up at the door. Sungyeol isn’t sure if he expected to see, like, hideous scars on the boys skin, but it’s as flawless as ever, and there’s no signs of crying in his eyes or on his cheeks. But still. He’s different. Maybe it’s the lack of trembling, the fact that he doesn’t seem as nervous—as terrified—as he did last time Sungyeol had seen him. But that doesn’t explain why he looks…older. The sickness is knotting up the pit of Sungyeol’s stomach again.

The boy bows immediately, a more practiced motion than last time, but it’s still not graceful and Sungyeol doesn’t know why he feels relieved at that. “Sungyeol-ssi,” the boy says when he straightens, and there’s a smile on his face, and Sungyeol feels a fission of something tingle through him at the sound of the boy’s voice.

“Hi,” Sungyeol says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. Fuck, this is why he doesn’t ever request the same servicer twice. He almost feels like he knows this kid now, and it makes him feel like he can’t just get right to things as usual. “How are you?”

The boy blinks at Sungyeol’s question, but he can’t be any more surprised than Sungyeol is. He hadn’t meant to say that, hadn’t even thought of saying it, and yet there it is. Sungyeol barely even asks other professionals how they are—well, except for Sunggyu, usually to tease him, and Niel, because that’s part of his role as sunbae. He doesn’t need to ask Sungjong how he is, because Sungjong will tell him. And nobody else really matters. 

“I’m…ready to service you,” the boy says carefully, and Sungyeol feels even more stupid at the answer. What did he expect the kid to say? ‘I’m fine, thanks for asking’? It probably didn’t even occur to the kid that Sungyeol was asking how he really was; he probably couldn’t imagine anyone asking that without really meaning, ‘Are you ready to have sex?’

Sungyeol feels stupid and awkward and still a bit sick, so he turns away to pull off his jacket, takes the time to hang it carefully on its hook instead of just tossing it over the chair back like he usually does. Fuck, what’s wrong with him? What is he supposed to _do_? This is exactly why he doesn’t request servicers more than once. This is exactly why.

He can’t think of what to say, what to do, so when he turns around he does the only thing he knows is okay to do in this situation: he walks over to the boy and kisses him.

This, too, is different. The boy kisses him back immediately, no hint of hesitation or uncertainty, lips and tongue skilled as any servicers’. It makes Sungyeol gasp, feeling like his head is lolling around on his neck; he’d known the boy was going to be good, was a fast learner, but there’s no trace of the lips that had trembled under his own and the body the boy presses against Sungyeol’s isn’t tensed up with anxiety either. The kissing is good, even better than it was before, of course, now that the kid knows what he’s doing, or at least it should feel that way, but….

Sungyeol tries to lose himself in the kissing, but thoughts keep worming up out of the depths of his brain. It’s been a little over a month. That means…the possibility of thirty-five service visits. But he probably doesn’t work that often; most servicers only get sent out two or three times a week, from what Sungyeol can tell. Even if he’s one of the most popular—and he couldn’t be, not when he’s brand new—they won’t send him out more than four times a week, surely. So. Fifteen or twenty then? Tops? Fifteen or twenty visits and he probably spends his days in the classes he should have had before he was sent out the first time. Where they teach him—what? How to pleasure the ones they service, sure, but how do they teach them that? Do they watch video? Do they practice with other servicers? Do they have homework? Do they have to study? 

Whatever they do, it’s got to be good curriculum because Sungyeol has never had one complaint about any of the servicers sent to him. Of course this boy is more confident, more skilled now, even if it’s only been a little over a month. You can learn a lot in a month, and the first time would have been the hardest, right? It had been the fact that he’d never been touched, that he didn’t know what to expect from his own body’s reactions and the reactions of the one he was servicing that made him so scared, right? By now he’s clearly used to the touching, now that he’s touched and been touched by fifteen other people.

Sungyeol’s been with so many more than fifteen people—more than he could even estimate, though he’s sure if you looked in his file there would be an exact number and a list of every single one. So why does fifteen feel like so many, so many it makes his stomach churn again?

He’s not going to think about this. Not right now. This is a service visit. The boy is here to have sex with him, that’s the point. Sungyeol can do that, at least.

He forces the thoughts form his mind and tunnels his fingers through the boy’s thick hair. It’s not silky and smooth like Sungjong’s or Sungyeol’s own; there’s more texture to it than most servicers’, but it feels exactly like it did last time, and Sungyeol tightens his fingers in it. He kisses the boy every way he knows—light and teasing and deep and probing and slow and languid and harsh and desperate—and each time he shifts tactics, the boy keeps up. Sungyeol bumps his hips into the boy’s, steering him towards the bed, and then they’re on the mattress, side by side like last time, though there’s no real need for that. Sungyeol could settle himself on top of the boy or pull the boy on top of him like he does with other servicers. The only reason he hadn’t last time was because he didn’t want to scare the kid. He knows it wouldn’t scare him this time. But he doesn’t do it. He just presses himself up against the boy and kisses him, each slide of the boy’s lips or stroke of his tongue sending pleasure through him.

When Sungyeol finally pulls back, he’s breathing hard and his lips are swollen and tender, and he’s beginning to get hard, and one look at the boy shows that he’s in the same state. His hair’s mussed, the result of Sungyeol’s greedy fingers, and his pupils are swallowing up his irises. Sungyeol can feel the bump of the boy’s hardening erection against his hip. “You’ve learned a lot,” Sungyeol breathes. 

“Yeah?” the boy says, and just for a moment, Sungyeol sees a hint of that hopeful wonder in his eyes that had been there last time when he’d asked Sungyeol if he was good. Sungyeol feels his stomach cool and settle a bit at the sight. 

“Yeah. I could tell you were a fast learner, but I didn’t know you were this fast.”

The boy looks a little pleased, but only a little. He doesn’t let his face crumple in that boyish smile like he had last time, but his eyes shine some. Sungyeol reminds himself that that’s a good thing, that he’d wanted the boy not to show how he was feeling so clearly. He’d worried, more than once, that the boy would cry with someone else and get in trouble, but he knows now that that didn’t happen. This boy is learning to control himself, learning fast. That’s good. Of course it is.

“Thank you, Sungyeol-ssi.”

Sungyeol doesn’t like that answer, though he doesn’t know why. He sits up to pull off his shirt and motions for the boy to do the same. Now that the shirt isn’t in the way, Sungyeol can see that his muscles are a little more defined than before, a little closer to the way the servicers’ bodies usually look. He runs a hand along the boy’s chest and over his arms and the boy shivers (Sungyeol tries not to feel smug about that). “You look different now,” Sungyeol says.

“I have an exercise regimen now,” the boy answers, eyes falling closed as Sungyeol explores his torso with his hands, taking note of every small difference. 

“You didn’t have one before?”

“No.” The boy’s breath hitches when Sungyeol’s hands brush over his nipples; he’s not reacting to each touch like he’s being electrocuted, but he’s still incredibly responsive. “Just work.”

Oh. Well, that makes sense. Laborers would get their exercise regimens through their work. Now that he’s exercising daily, the boy’s body will of course change. But Sungyeol finds himself hoping it doesn’t change too much. It was perfect the way it was.

Sungyeol jolts when the boy’s warm hands touch his own soft skin for the first time, and, fuck, there must be something special about his laborer’s hands, because Sungyeol had paid special attention during all his service visits since he last saw this boy, and while all of them were good, none of the other servicers made him feel quite like this with such simple touches.

“You’re still the same,” the boys says, his hands sliding down towards Sungyeol’s belly, and Sungyeol doesn’t think he’s imagining that the boy sounds kind of pleased as he says it. He can feel his own cheeks starting to flush.

_No, I’m not_ , he wants to say, but that’s stupid, because of course he is. He’s always exactly the same except that sometimes he gets his hair trimmed and sometimes he gets to work on new compounds at work and sometimes Sungjong will tell him some new historical fact and once a year he has a birthday and gets another year older. But other than that, he’s always the same. Why would he feel like he isn’t?

The boy isn’t the same, there are so many little differences, but when Sungyeol closes his eyes and feels the boy’s mouth leaving marks on his tummy, it _feels_ exactly like it did last time. He’s never had anyone pay attention to his belly before, not really, and yeah, the boy had done it last time, too, but Sungyeol had figured he just didn’t really know what to do and had just been trying different things to experiment. Since then he’s had lessons, and they must have told him which areas to focus on—taught him about the clitoris and the prostate and things like that. They definitely didn’t tell him to focus on anyone’s midriff. 

“You like bellies?” Sungyeol asks, slipping his fingers back into the boy’s hair. His stomach isn’t exactly one of his erogenous zones, but the boy’s mouth feels great anywhere on his body, so he’s not going to complain. Besides, he’s read about weirder fetishes in some of Sungjong’s books.

The boy detaches his lips from Sungyeol’s skin just long enough to mutter, “I like yours,” and Sungyeol’s hips shoot off the bed. The boy laughs in surprise, breath fanning against the wet place he’d left on Sungyeol’s skin, and pushes Sungyeol’s pelvis back down. Sungyeol stares at the ceiling, breathing so hard he feels like he’s going to strip his lungs raw, and tries to make sense of what just happened. He’d almost _shot off in his pants_. He doesn’t do that. After all these years, he’s got extraordinary control, and he only comes when he lets himself, and—and the boy hasn’t even touched his erection yet! What the fuck was that? This boy must have some sort of enhanced powers or something because it doesn’t make sense that saying two words would make Sungyeol react like that. Or maybe it’s just a fluke, just Sungyeol’s body doing something random again, like how it always gets sick when it’s not supposed, when there’s no reason for it to. Fuck.

He’s still staring at the ceiling trying to get control of himself when the boy unbuttons his pants and slides his hand down inside. The first brush of his hand is almost too much for Sungyeol in this weirdly sensitive state, and he thinks if the boy strokes him for more than a second he’s going to shoot off even if he doesn’t want to, so Sungyeol does something he’s never done before. He reaches down and takes the boy’s hand out of his pants. The boy looks up at him quizzically, but Sungyeol doesn’t let go, sitting up and turning the boy’s hand over in his. He brushes his fingers across the top of the boy’s palm just below where the fingers start, back and forth, but they’re not there anymore. The calluses that had lurked below the skin are completely gone.

“Sungyeol-ssi?” The boy’s voice is tentative, almost as hesitant as it had been last time. It shouldn’t make Sungyeol feel better, but somehow it does. “Are you okay?”

Sungyeol wants to laugh at that, but he doesn’t want to have to explain why he’s laughing to the boy. He’s not sure he could. Not that he’d have to explain himself to a servicer, of course he wouldn’t. But still…. “I haven’t been feeling well lately,” he says, finally raising his eyes from the boy’s hand.

The boy’s eyes widen, and the sight is so familiar (how can it be so familiar? He only saw it a few times before) that Sungyeol’s hand tightens around the boy’s. “Are you sick? Do you need to go to the infirmary?”

“Don’t worry,” Sungyeol says, mouth twisting wryly. “It’s not something you can catch.” _I’m pretty sure Sungjong would say that essential humanity asserting itself isn’t contagious._

“That’s not what I—“ The boy’s forehead furrows. “Is there anything you need?”

Sungyeol wishes he knew. He doesn’t even know what’s wrong, what’s been making him feel so terrible these last few weeks, what it is about this boy that makes him feel so good and so bad at the same time. One minute the boy is making him soothed and relaxed and (of course) turned on, the next he’s making him feel worse than he felt before. It’s driving Sungyeol crazy, till he wants to rip his hair out or run screaming through the halls, but he can’t outrun it, no matter how fast he goes on the treadmill, and he can’t even forget about it when he sleeps. 

He’s only ever had one escape, and it’s the only one he has now. He pushes the boy back onto the bed and starts to work peeling his pants off of him. He slides his hands up the boy’s bare legs—he has fucking fantastic legs—and squeezes his thighs. When he lowers his head, the boy lets out a little gasp.

“You don’t—you don’t have to do that, Sungyeol-ssi.”

Sungyeol raises his head slowly. “No one’s done this for you since me?” Heat curls in his stomach, but the good kind of heat this time. 

The boy shakes his head and Sungyeol grins. 

The boy is almost as sensitive as he was last time and even more vocal, as though last time the experience had been too intense for him to get the sounds out. Now he moans and whimpers and Sungyeol finds to his satisfaction that once again he squirms when he’s being pleasured. That, at least, hasn’t changed, and Sungyeol relishes the way he thrashes around, his beautiful hands fisting in the bed sheets. One of his feet kicks a couple of times right before he comes, and Sungyeol thinks it’s the cutest thing he’s ever seen. Maybe it’s the way that cuteness warms him that makes him swallow again, drawing the boy’s orgasm out as long as he can even after the boy slumps back onto the bed and lets out a long, ragged breath.

Sungyeol crawls up the bed to look down at the boy’s flushed, sweaty face. He sweats a lot, this boy, and Sungyeol wonders if he used to sweat even more when he was working. Sungyeol brushes the damp hair away from the boy’s forehead and smiles at the way the boy is still staring at him. 

“Still good?” he can’t resist asking. 

“ _Yes_ ,” the boy hisses, and Sungyeol laughs and leans down to kiss him.

“Sungyeol-ssi?” the boy asks when Sungyeol pulls back and sits up, cross-legged and looking down at him. The boy’s playing with the hem of the ankle of Sungyeol’s pants, and Sungyeol should probably tell him to stop, but he doesn’t really mind. “Yeah?”

The boy looks down at where his fingers are fiddling with the fabric. “Do you like…doing that?”

“What, blowing?”

“Yeah.”

Sungyeol has to think about it. He likes just about anything to do with sex, but performing oral sex probably isn’t near the top of his list of favorites. He does feel satisfaction at making the ones he goes down on feel good, but he wouldn’t say he likes it for itself. Only, when it’s this boy, writhing and barely holding onto sanity, somehow Sungyeol does. “I like it when it’s you,” Sungyeol says, and he shouldn’t say it, he knows it’s a stupid thing to say, but he can’t stop himself, and then the boy’s eyes go wide again and his face flushes even redder than it already was, and fuck, what is it about this boy that turns him so stupid? 

“Oh,” the boy says, and Sungyeol feels both warm and really foolish at the same time, so he stands up and shucks off his pants and when he lays back down the boy’s blush has faded and he knows what to do.

The boy’s mouth feels as good and hot as ever, but his technique has improved considerably. Maybe no one’s blown him since Sungyeol saw him, but he’s certainly done his fair share of blowing. Sungyeol could quite happily come in the boy’s mouth, but for some reason he wants to come inside him this time, so he pulls the boy back before he can finish Sungyeol off.

The boy is much easier to prepare this time and it occurs to Sungyeol as he’s working his fingers into the boy that he’s probably been fucked multiple times by now and he could just as easily prepare himself. But Sungyeol likes to watch the muscles in the kid’s ass twitch and flex and to know that his own fingers are causing that, so he does it himself. And when he eases his way into the boy, it isn’t as obscenely tight as before, but it’s more than good enough, and the ease with which the boy takes him in more than makes up for that.

Sungyeol usually likes to try a different position each time he fucks someone; he may not have them visit him more than once, but he usually fucks them at least two or three times while they’re with him, so he has time to try different things. But this time he finds himself once again with the boy’s legs around his waist and his arms around his neck and it’s different this time because, yes, the boy clearly has a much better idea of what he’s doing, but the sounds he makes seem to fill Sungyeol up and he smells really fucking good even under the sweat and everything about his body against Sungyeol’s feels amazing. 

He makes the boy come again with some expert attention to his prostate, and maybe it’s the feeling of the boy’s arm’s squeezing tighter around his neck as he comes that triggers Sungyeol’s own release. When they’re laying side by side again and Sungyeol looks over at him, the boy smiles and then drops his eyes, and Sungyeol know he shouldn’t have never called this boy back, but fuck if he isn’t glad he did.

“What are the administrators’ beds like?” Sungyeol asks suddenly. The boy stares at him for a second, then seems to remember their previous conversation.

“They’re the softest thing I ever felt,” he says, and Sungyeol can’t really tell if he’s imagining it or not, but he thinks maybe the boy’s eyes dim a bit as he answers. He looks like he’s somewhere else. It isn’t a happy or wistful expression, but Sungyeol doesn’t like it. 

“And bigger than mine?” Sungyeol asks, wanting the boy’s attention back.

The boy focuses his eyes on him and smiles. “Yeah. Way bigger. And the sheets are—“ He cocks his head to the side, thinking. “I don’t know what they are, but they feel better than anything.”

“And fluffier pillows?” Sungyeol prompts and the boy looks at him confusion for a second and then in something like wonder. _Yeah, I’m teasing you, little boy. You’re supposed to play along._

The boy does. “Fluffier than clouds,” he says with a smile.

Sungyeol’s seen pictures of clouds, of course, lots of times, but he’s never seen a real one. “You’ve seen real clouds?”

The boy’s face goes serious, but again not unhappy. “Every day. Before.”

“Huh.” Sungyeol tries to imagine that. “Like big fluffy cotton balls like in the infirmary?”

“Sometimes. They’re different every day.”

“Yeah?” Sungyeol had known that, but it’s weird to think about.

“Yeah. Some days they’re thin and wispy. Some days there aren’t any at all. Some days they’re huge and grey and it rains and rains. I don’t like the rain.”

“They make you stay outside when it rains?” Sungyeol had read that people stayed indoors as much as they could when it was raining. 

“Yeah,” the boy says, in something like the tone Sungjong uses when he thinks the answer to Sungyeol’s question should be obvious. It’s annoying when it’s Sungjong. “We have to work.”

Sungyeol tries to imagine what it would be like to do work—hard work, so hard that they don’t even need exercise regimens to keep their muscles—when he’s soaking wet like when he just gets out of the pool. It doesn’t sound too pleasant.

“Sometimes it snows, though. Usually the whole sky is white then, and it’s like bits of it are falling down. I like snow.”

Sungyeol wonders if he would like snow. “It’s cold, right?” Sungyeol doesn’t really like being cold. One of his professors had always kept the classroom at a much cooler setting than the rest of the building, and Sungyeol had always hated that.

“Yeah. It’s really beautiful. It makes work harder, but…” The boy shrugs. They’re quiet for a moment, Sungyeol trying to picture this boy outside working hard while it snows little flakes of frozen water from the sky.

“I kind of miss it,” the boy says softly, so softly Sungyeol almost doesn’t hear it.

“What? Outside?”

“Yeah.” 

Sungyeol thinks about things he’s missed in his life. They used to have this kind of dessert in the cafeteria that he doesn’t even know the name of but it was really good and when they stopped making it, he missed it. He misses sex when it’s been too many days since he last had it. Sometimes he misses Sungjong when they haven’t spent much time together in a day or two. But none of those things have made him feel like he could say, ‘I miss it’ the way the boy just said it. Sungyeol doesn’t really know what that feeling is in the boy’s voice, but he knows he’s never felt it. Except…well, it sounds a little bit like what he’s been feeling these past few weeks. Except maybe not. Maybe not at all.

They have sex again once Sungyeol’s recovered—servicers recover more quickly, which Sungyeol assumes has something to do with their training or maybe their diet—and then they fall asleep. When Sungyeol awakens, it’s dark, so it must still be night since the overhead lights haven’t come on yet, and he’s kind of sticky the way he always is after sex, his mind streaky and calm. It takes him a moment to recognize that the silhouette against the dim night-lights around the edge of the room is the boy, sitting up with his knees tucked under his chin and his arms wrapped around them. He’s staring at Sungyeol, and Sungyeol thinks maybe he sees a glint of tears in the boy’s eyes, but not on his cheeks.

“Hey,” Sungyeol says, voice cracking. “What’re you doing?”

The boy jolts as though he hadn’t realized Sungyeol was awake, looking away quickly, his movements panicked like they were when Sungyeol first saw him. “Nothing, Sungyeol-ssi. I wasn’t—nothing!”

Sungyeol’s too tired to really think much about it, so he just beckons with a lazy arm. “C’mere.” The boy looks at him warily, and he repeats, “C’mere.”

The boy slides over to him and stretches out beside him, letting Sungyeol slip an arm around him and pull him up against him. The boy’s a bit sticky, too, but the rest of his skin feels good against Sungyeol’s, and the warmth of him is nice as Sungyeol pulls the sheets higher around them. Sungyeol’s never been one for cuddling or any kind of touching that isn’t about sex (except with Sungjong, but it’s definitely not like this), but he likes this, the warm solidness of the boy pressed against him, the brush of the boy’s breath against his collarbones, the smell of the boy in his lungs. The boy takes a moment to relax, and then Sungyeol feels him hold his breath as his hand steals out and he interlaces his fingers with Sungyeol’s. Sungyeol thinks about pulling his hand away, but he doesn’t. He falls asleep again to the sound of the boy’s breathing evening out and the feel of the boy’s hand in his.

 

 

The next day after the boy is gone, Sungyeol looks down at the marks the boy had sucked all over his belly as he jerks off in the shower. Even after they fade in the days after that, he can still hear the boy’s rough voice in his head: _I like yours._ And that’s enough.


	5. five

Sungyeol finds that he’s thinking about the boy all the time. And not just like he does when he sometimes gets horny and wishes it wasn’t so long until his next servicer visit, but at times and in ways that he’s never thought about anyone before, especially not a servicer. When he’s getting ready for work in the morning, pulling on his clothes and brushing his teeth, he thinks about the way the boy’s face crumples up when he yawns himself awake (Sungyeol’s only seen that twice; why does it feel like it’s a sight he’s always known?). When he’s going over linear least squares at work, making sure the math is correct before he pours and mixes, he thinks about the feeling of the boy’s breath against his neck and the rise and fall of his chest under Sungyeol’s arm. When he’s eating dinner with Sungjong, listening to Sungjong rant about things he doesn’t understand (‘There used to be _art_ , hyung. It used to be that there were people who dedicated their whole lives to exploring what it feels like to be human.’), he thinks about the way the boy’s voice sounds, always a little nasal, but so different when he’s moaning in pleasure than it is when he’s scared or when he’s talking about clouds (Sungyeol asks Sungjong for a textbook with pictures of clouds, and Sungjong looks at him strangely but gives him one the next day, and Sungyeol looks at the pictures, all the different kinds, and tries to think about what it would be like to see them himself. It makes his head hurt). 

Those thoughts aren’t the kind Sungyeol is used to, and they make him uncomfortable, but they aren’t nearly as bad as the wondering. Wondering what the boy is doing right now and whether someone is hurting him (or whether someone is making him feel _good_ , which makes Sungyeol feel almost as sick, though _that doesn’t make any sense at all_ —he _wants_ the people the boy services to be kind to him, so why does the thought still make him feel this way?) and how he’s feeling and—Sungyeol has never wondered that about anyone. He’s never really cared what other people are doing when they’re not with him—they’re doing their job, of course, or eating a meal or sleeping in their rooms, what’s there to wonder?—and he doesn’t really care how they feel, either, except for Sungjong, but he never has to wonder about how Sungjong feels because Sungjong will tell him. He’s sometimes cared when Niel feels nervous or excited or when Sunggyu is more irritated with him than usual but only when Sungyeol is beside them. Never when they aren’t with him. It makes the wondering even more overwhelming, more insistent in a way Sungyeol has never experienced before. He wishes he could resent the boy for it, but he can’t. 

When the time comes to choose his next servicer, Sungyeol’s fingers itch to click on the boy’s picture. But he doesn’t, jerking his hands back and settling himself for whoever they send him. It’s not like he can pick the boy every time. Going from never having the same servicer twice to having the same one each time? No, that could draw attention, and they can’t do that. The last thing Sungyeol wants is for any of those in charge to look at the boy with suspicion. 

The girl they send is lovely, long dark hair and a dimple when she smiles briefly at him (he’s glad she doesn’t smile much, because the dimple reminds him too much of the boy). She’s good—of course she is—and the sex is good, but even when she’s whimpering with Sungyeol’s fingers between her legs, Sungyeol can’t help but think of how different the sounds she makes are than the ones the boy makes.

And it’s that moment, getting the girl ready, long fingers working, that Sungyeol thinks, _It’s stupid to keep thinking of him as ‘the boy’ when he’s not even a boy at all._ And that’s when Sungyeol discovers that he wants to know the boy’s name.

 

 

“Of course you want to know his name,” Sungjong says, moving his rook with his sure fingers. “Names are important.”

Sungyeol quirks an eyebrow at him. “Names are _important_?”

“Yes, hyung, they are,” Sungjong says firmly, ignoring the mocking in Sungyeol’s tone. 

“How are they important?” That doesn’t make any sense. Names serve a purpose, of course. They let him know that the professor is calling on him, not someone else, to answer the question. They make keeping files easier. They let you get someone’s attention without touching them—touching is usually rude. But important? The way Sungjong uses that word? Sungyeol doesn’t get it.

“Names remind us that we’re human.”

Sungyeol is not impressed by this explanation. “Of course we’re human. What else would we be? What, do you think we’re going to forget and think we’re monkeys?” Not that Sungyeol has ever seen a monkey, but he’s seen pictures. And he knows about evolution, of course. 

Sungjong gets that look he does when he’s annoyed at Sungyeol’s flippancy. “Not _homo sapiens_ , hyung. _Human_. The distinction is important.”

“Why do you always talk about things being important when they couldn’t possibly be important?” Sungyeol’s been more easily irritated lately, and for some reason, Sungjong’s unfathomableness is what’s been irking him most. Why can’t Sungjong just act like everyone else? Sure, most of the time it’s Sungjong’s differentness that makes Sungyeol like him most. But not right now.

“Look, hyung, you like this kid.” Sungjong rolls his eyes at the half-incredulous, half-offended look on Sungyeol’s face. “You do. You like him enough that you can’t forget that he’s human, not just an object for you to use to make you feel good—don’t argue with me, Lee Sungyeol, I’m right. His humanity is important enough to he deserves a name in your mind. He always deserves a name—everyone deserves a name—but you don’t see that. It makes me want to strangle you, a lot of the time, but this is a step in the right direction at least.”

“Why are you always talking about ‘important’ and ‘humanity’? It’s really obnoxious, Sungjong.”

“Not as obnoxious as your myopia, hyung.”

“I don’t have myopia! My eyesight is perfect!”

“Whatever, hyung.”

That’s Sungjong’s chosen way of ending conversations when he’s fed up with why Sungyeol doesn’t understand whatever it is he’s insisting is important. Usually the superior tone annoys Sungyeol enough that he picks some kind of other fight he’s more likely to win, but not this time. He focuses on the chess board between them for a long time, then moves his knight, and glances around the lounge at the others who aren’t paying them any attention. 

“Should I…should I ask him his name?”

The words come out in an undertone, though Sungyeol hadn’t really intended for them to. But it feels big, just voicing the question, big and something that he should keep a secret. Secrets are wrong, of course, Sungyeol knows that. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t occasionally keep them. He’s always been a bit of a trouble maker.

Sungjong looks up from the board and into his eyes, his own so intent that Sungyeol squirms under them and looks away. “You really shouldn’t,” Sungjong says finally, his own voice low. “He could report you; you’d get in trouble.”

“He wouldn’t do that!” The words snap out before Sungyeol can think about them, and he isn’t sure why he’s so certain, but he _is_. The boy doesn’t want to see Sungyeol in trouble any more than Sungyeol wants to see him in trouble. 

The look in Sungjong’s eyes in unreadable. “You don’t think so? Well, in that case, it might be good for you. But you have to be careful, hyung.”

Sungyeol gnaws on his bottom lip for a while, moves his bishop, thinks about the boy. Thinks about him so much that Sungjong wins the game in only a few more moves. Sungyeol is usually pretty competitive, doesn’t like to lose, but he can’t even muster up a prick of irritation this time. He mumbles something to Sungjong about heading back to his apartment, but Sungjong catches him by the wrist as he moves to go.

“Please, hyung,” Sungjong says, eyes more serious than Sungyeol has seen them in a long time. “You have to be careful.”

 

 

 

Sungyeol knows he should wait at least one more week before he chooses the boy again, but he can’t do it. So when his service day comes and he rushes home, the boy is waiting on his couch, just like before, and when he stands and smiles at Sungyeol, Sungyeol isn’t sure whether he wants to laugh or throw up. There’s that dimple, the one that only shows when he smiles, and Sungyeol wants to kiss it. So he does, walking over and pressing his lips to the little dent, breathing in the scent of the boy. He smells like all servicers do, a pleasant smell that’s probably from their toiletries, but underneath that there’s something that’s just him. Sungyeol wishes he could smell it better. 

“Hello, Sungyeol-ssi,” the boy says, breath hitching a little, and Sungyeol’s been thinking about that voice so much that the sound of it seems to shoot through him. He wraps his arms around the boy, pulls him close, kisses him deep, and a feeling itches its way through him, a feeling he’ll puzzle over for several days before he finally hits on the right word (it’s relief). The boy’s arms loop around his neck and he kisses back with an eagerness that makes Sungyeol feel like lava is flowing through his veins. He pulls the boy closer.

Sungyeol had been thinking more about asking the boy his name than he had about sex, but now that the boy’s here, the latter seems most pressing. Sungyeol has the boy stripped and spread out on the bed soon enough, and then all he wants to do is kiss him all over, touch him all over, listen to every single sound he’s capable of making. Sungyeol decides the sounds he likes best are the ones he makes when Sungyeol takes him into his mouth, uses every bit of skill he can muster to pleasure him, to make him thrash and squirm on the bed, to make him sweat and pant and whine. At one point the boy gasps, “Sungyeol-ssi,” and Sungyeol has to press his hips against the mattress at the sound. (That’s the first time he has the suspicion that Sungjong might be right: maybe names _are_ important.) He swallows again—he thinks he’ll probably always swallow with this boy—and then lets the boy help him out of his own clothes, and then the boy’s hands and mouth are on his belly, and Sungyeol almost wants to cry.

He has the boy ride him this time, and part of him isn’t crazy about it because he wants as much of the boy’s skin to be touching as much of his own as possible (and because the boy knows just what to do even though Sungyeol hadn’t taught him this), but the rest of him loves it, because he can see the boy’s face so clearly this way, see each feeling flicker over it, see the way the boy moves, for once graceful as he never is when he’s doing anything else, rising and falling, his face flushed and sweaty and strained almost to ugliness with pleasure. Sungyeol wraps a hand around the boy’s erection like he wants to wrap his whole body around him, and he keeps his eyes on the boy’s face even when he wants to let them sink closed. The boy looks back at him, and his eyes are so penetrating Sungyeol feels like he should look away, but he can’t. He reaches down with his free hand and intertwines his fingers with the boy’s. 

After they’ve both come, with the boy collapses, panting, against Sungyeol’s chest, Sungyeol wraps an arm around him, rolls them till they’re on their sides, and pulls out. But instead of moving to lie on his back beside the boy, he just pulls him closer, their chests moving together as they gasp for breath.

The boy lets Sungyeol hold him for a minute, and then his arms steal out to wrap around Sungyeol’s waist, and Sungyeol tightens his own arms in response. The boy is soaked with sweat, and the smell is bright and not particularly pleasant in Sungyeol’s nose, but he likes it: the smell of servicer has been overwhelmed by perspiration, and while the scent is pretty much like anyone else’s sweat, there’s just enough uniqueness that Sungyeol can tell this is _his_ smell. He buries his nose in the nape of the boy’s neck and waits till his heart slows.

“What’s your name?”

The boy, who had been so loose and relaxed just a moment before, goes wire-taut in Sungyeol’s arms. “What?”

“What’s your name?” Sungyeol repeats, more anxious than annoyed, though he tries not to let it show.

“I’m—I’m not supposed to tell you that,” the boy chokes after a moment. 

_And I’m not supposed to ask._ Sungyeol pulls back without letting go, just enough so he can see the boy’s face, the worry lines between his eyebrows. He looks so troubled, not quite scared, maybe, but a different kind of miserable, and Sungyeol hates it. “I know. But I want to know.”

The conflict is so clear all over the boy’s face: torn between different rules: the one that says to do and give anything to make the one he’s servicing happy, the one that says not to reveal his name. Sungyeol smooths the boy’s hair away from his forehead and presses a kiss to his lips. “You won’t get in trouble. I promise. Do you think I’d report you to someone? I never would.”

He relaxes a bit at that, but he still looks wary. “I know you wouldn’t—I—Why—“

“You can ask me anything.” He’s said it before, but he means it even more now. He’d tell this boy anything he wants to know.

“I—why do you want to know?”

Sungyeol hitches the boy a bit closer to him, tangling their legs together. “It’s inconvenient to think of you as ‘the boy’ all the time. Especially since you’re not really a boy.”

Sungyeol had just meant to answer the question; he hadn’t considered how much is words would reveal. But the boy’s cheeks, just beginning to lose their exertion blush, flush dark again, and his eyes go wide. “You think of me?” he breathes, and Sungyeol suddenly feels too exposed.

So he ducks his head to mouth at the boy’s collarbones, the salt of sweat tangy on his tongue. “Yeah.”

“When I—when I’m not here?” The boy’s voice has never been this tentative before, not even the first time. It’s barely more than a whisper, husky with the aftermath of his pleasure-fueled groans.

Sungyeol nips at the boy’s clavicle. “Yeah.” _All the time._ But he can’t say that, even if it’s true.

The boy gasps, whether from Sungyeol’s mouth or Sungyeol’s words, and his arms tighten around Sungyeol’s waist. “I think about you too,” he breathes, and Sungyeol feels something explode inside him. It makes him tremble with the need to _do_ something—scream or cry or laugh or jump up and run around the room. Something.

But instead he just rolls the boy over so that he’s underneath him, his wide eyes looking up at Sungyeol’s. Sungyeol wants to surround him, to cover him completely, but this will have to do. “Do you think about anyone else?”

“What?” The boy looks confused—not scared, and not blank the way he occasionally does, but like he doesn’t know what Sungyeol is asking. Sungyeol lowers his head long enough to bite—lighter than he wants to—at the boy’s shoulder.

“Any of the other people you…service. Do you think about them?”

The boy is quiet for a long time, his dark eyes unreadable, and Sungyeol has the sudden terrified thought that the boy is lying to him. That he’s just saying this because he thinks it’s what Sungyeol wants to hear and he has to please him. The thought makes a cold as intense as heat flush through him, and his hands fist up, nails digging into his palms as he feels like he wants to come out of his skin.

“No. Only you.” 

The words are so, so quiet, but cold abandons Sungyeol as quickly as it came: he believes him. He can’t prove it, of course, prove that the boy is telling the truth. There’s no way to know for sure. But he believes it nonetheless. That doesn’t make sense, because the only reason to believe something is because you have proof—they’re encouraged to not even take the things their teachers tell them as fact until they’ve proved them themselves in labs, and Sungyeol has always done just that. There’s absolutely no reason to think that this boy isn’t lying. But he believes him anyway.

The boy gasps when Sungyeol’s mouth attacks his own, but he kisses back immediately, the kiss quickly becoming so desperate and rough that they roll over with the energy of it, getting tangled in the sheets, now one on top, now the other, their fingers in each other’s hair, their tongues and lips and teeth never resting. Sungyeol has the weird thought that if he could, he would inhale this boy, take him entirely inside him and hold him there and never let him out. It’s a stupid thought, but his chest aches with the want of it. 

The boy breaks away just long enough to gasp something against Sungyeol’s lips. “Myungsoo.”

Sungyeol has to wrest another kiss from him before he can pull back enough to say, “What?” He hadn’t understood him; that’s a word he never heard before.

Another few minutes of furious kissing pass before the boy gets another chance to speak. “Myungsoo. That’s my name.”

Sungyeol freezes for just a moment, that same ice-cold burn shooting through him, but it’s different this time. “Myungsoo,” he says, and the boy gasps again and then they’re kissing, and every time one of them pulls back to breathe, Sungyeol whispers, “Myungsoo,” and the boy’s fingers tighten in his hair or he whimpers or twitches. 

Except for the one time when he moans, “Sungyeol-ssi,” and Sungyeol’s stomach lurches.

“Don’t call me that,” he says, and then he can’t even take the time to kiss the boy again because the boy’s gone tense against him and Sungyeol has to make sure he understands. “No –ssi. Don’t use that anymore. Just Sungyeol.”

“I can’t—we’re not supposed to—“

But Sungyeol isn’t going to let this go. “Just Sungyeol,” he repeats, voice as firm as he knows how to make it, and then the boy—no, not the boy— _Myungsoo_ —goes loose in his arms again and whispers, “Sungyeol.”

Sungyeol will never, ever admit it, but Sungjong was right. Names are really important.


	6. six

The boy’s name gets stuck in his head like the quadratic formula, popping up when he’s thinking about something else entirely, chanting itself over and over like background noise. Sungyeol gasps it when he jerks himself off in the shower or in bed, and sometimes, when he’s alone, he’ll just say it to himself for no reason he can name, but just because he wants to, the taste of it melting on his tongue. Myungsoo.

He spends even more time wondering whether the boy—no. No. _Myungsoo_ —is thinking of him, wondering _what_ Myungsoo is thinking of him, wondering if Myungsoo is missing him and whether Myungsoo has ever missed anything this way before. Whether Myungsoo misses him more than he misses clouds.

Every spare moment he has, he looks forward to the next time Myungsoo can come to him, the next time Sungyeol will be able to feel him breathing against him and smell his scent and hear his voice. He tells Sungjong that he got the boy’s name (but not what it is. He doesn’t want to share it with anyone yet, not even Sungjong) and Sungjong looks pleased and troubled at the same time, but Sungyeol barely notices. 

He begins to get used to it, the constant ache when Myungsoo isn’t there, the wondering and the trying to picture what Myungsoo is doing at any given moment (Sungjong says that’s called ‘imagining’ and that it’s important. So many things seem important to Sungjong, but Sungyeol is still caught up in the importance of names). It becomes a part of his life the way work and meals with Sungjong are. Myungsoo has introduced something new into Sungyeol’s world for the first time since Sungyeol became old enough to get servicer visits, and Sungyeol loves it, even as he’s constantly thrumming with frustration over how Myungsoo can’t be with him _all the time_.

But despite the many shades of newness, Sungyeol is completely unprepared for what he feels when he clicks on Myungoso’s picture and the systems bings, saying that the servicer requested is unavailable at the designated time.

Sungyeol hadn’t thought that any feeling in the world could be as intense as what he feels during sex. In comparison, every other emotion he’s felt—pride at accomplishment in studies or work, pleasure at an enjoyable meal, annoyance with Sunggyu or his life coach—has seemed dull and blunted. There’s a certain kind of affection he sometimes feels wash through him when Sungjong smiles or is especially sassy or gives him a hug, and it’s more vivid and warmer than things Sungyeol is used to feeling, but it doesn’t have the robust and nuanced dimensions of sex, especially not sex with Myungsoo. Sungyeol has mostly just decided that sex is on another level all together and nothing else will be able to reach it for immediacy and enormity. 

He was wrong. The feeling that lightnings through him when he sees that he boy isn’t available is sharpsharpsharp, too bright and with a burning edge, and Sungyeol has to grab onto the arms of his chair so hard that he thinks he feels his bones grind against each other. _Not available at the designated time_. 

He hadn’t considered this. Now that it’s happened, that seems foolish: there have been many times when he’d picked a servicer at random and the system had told him they were already assigned during his visit time. He’d felt less concern over that than he had when a meal he didn’t care for was scheduled on the menu. He’d just picked someone else instead without even really thinking about it. He’d felt a twinge of something a bit more real when he found out that Woohyun had been assigned permanently, but even that he’d gotten over soon enough. This, though….

He stands up abruptly, shoving the chair back so hard with the back of his knees that it rolls across the floor and slaps into the wall. He doesn’t notice.

He’d never thought his apartment small before; it always felt perfectly adequate for his needs. But now he wishes it was bigger, because his long legs carry him across the floor in such fast strides that there’s no relief in pacing. He thinks of going to his bathroom and emptying the contents of his stomach into the toilet—his belly is certainly roiling enough to make it a possibility, all the more so when he thinks of the boy sucking marks onto the skin of it. 

He paces and he paces and he paces and he’s so _stupid_ , this shouldn’t be a surprise, of course a servicer as beautiful as Myungsoo would be in demand, it’s a wonder a scheduling conflict hasn’t happened _yet_. It’s just one week; Sungyeol can go ahead and reserve him for next time and make sure it doesn’t happen again next week. It’s just one week, and a week is barely any time at all, and why does he feel this way? _Why_?

 

 

Sungyeol finds himself scrolling through the pictures of the servicers whenever he has nothing else to do, staring sightlessly at their attractive faces that once delighted him with variety and subtle differences but that now seem exactly the same (not-Myungsoo). What will Myungsoo think when he isn’t assigned to Sungyeol on Friday night? When he’s sent to someone else? Will he think that Sungyeol would just ask his name and then not even want to see him again the next week? Will he not know that Sungyeol has spent every second of every day wanting to see him? 

Does he want to see Sungyeol? Sungyeol thinks he does—hopes he does. When Myungsoo had said he thinks of him—only of him—Sungyeol had believed him, had thought that he was—what’s that word Sungjong uses about Minha? Oh, yes. Special. He’d thought he was special to Myungsoo the way Myungsoo is special to him. But maybe it’s not that. Maybe it’s just that Sungyeol is nicer to him than the others he services or that Sungyeol gives him blowjobs when no one else does. Maybe it’s the blowjobs Myungsoo is thinking of. Maybe it’s not Sungyeol at all.

The thought distracts him so much, shooting around in his brain like liquid mercury, that Sungjong starts to notice how off he is. “Do you need to talk, hyung?” he asks, voice gentler than it usually is. “Do you need to tell me about it?”

Part of him wants to, so badly. To have Sungjong tell him why he feels this way and whether Myungsoo feels the same way and what they can do about it. But he can’t. He can’t.

Friday—service visit day—approaches and Sungyeol knows they’re going to send him someone new, someone he’s never seen before, just like they always do, and suddenly the thought is unbearable. He wishes—stupidly, futilely—that he could pick Woohyun. He’d talk about it with Woohyun, maybe, or maybe he wouldn’t, but it would somehow be a relief to see that wide smile and pointy nose instead of some face he’s never seen before.

He’s scrolling through the pictures again when one catches his eyes, and the sight of it makes his stomach lurch, but not in an unpleasant way. Before he can talk himself out of it, he clicks.

 

 

 

She looks different now, and he isn’t sure if he likes the changes or not, even if they’re to be expected—he was a teenager last time he saw her, and she probably was, too, maybe even younger than him, now that he thinks about it. She looks like a woman now, her body less slender, more curvy, settling into hips and thighs in a more adult way. Her hair is darker and a little bit shorter, but when she smiles at him, it’s the same (it’s a relief).

“Hello, Sungyeol-ssi,” his teacher-girl says, and he had forgotten what her voice sounded like. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

“You remember me?” he asks emotionlessly. At the sight of her, he feels wrung-out, flat, but it’s so much better than the turmoil that’s been torturing him over the past week that he’s glad.

Her grin widens. “You were one of my best students.” 

He thinks that in any other circumstances, he’d feel a glow of pride at those words. Right now he doesn’t feel much of anything at all.

“Did you cycle through all the available servicers so now you’re going back through?” she asks. Her voice and face are still bright and young like they were before. 

“Can that happen?” His emotions are too blunted to feel much surprise at this new thought.

“It can for professionals. For administrators, if they want someone new but they’ve gone through all the available servicers, the managers just send for servicers from another building.”

Another building. Sungyeol knows there are more buildings than just his own, probably many of them. He has a vague recollection of Sungjong explaining that they were set up identically to this building, same amount of people, even with the same departments on the same floors. He hadn’t paid much attention at the time because professionals never leave their own buildings, and even administrators only do rarely. But apparently servicers do, if the administration wants someone new. 

Sungyeol’s just been standing in the doorway since he entered, but now he slowly kicks off his shoes and drags off his jacket and walks over to her. She’s waiting for him, lifts her face to his when he reaches her, and as soon as he lowers his lips to hers, he slumps against her, even his mouth lethargic in the kiss.

After she kisses him, she pulls back and looks into his face for a long moment, eyes steady. “Come on,” she says, and leads him to the bed and strips him efficiently of his clothes before pushing him down onto the mattress. He reaches for her own clothes, but she shakes her head.

“But isn’t it better when we both want to make each other feel good?” he asks, his confusion blunted by his weariness.

“Most of the time, yes. But you aren’t in any mood to make it good for anyone else right now. It would be more frustrating than anything if you tried. Just…I’ll take care of it now.”

She does. She seems to realize that his mood is not up for anything energetic or acrobatic, and she takes things slow and easy. The pleasure is a low-banked fire, steady and sure, and she rides him to a pleasure that seems to drift up out of his cells and through his body, deep but misty around the edges. It’s good.

“Thank you,” Sungyeol says afterwards, his heart rate dropping back to normal as the sweat dries on his skin. Her arm is touching his and it’s warm and smooth, but it isn’t like Myungsoo’s. It’s the first time he’s ever thanked a servicer.

He’s staring at the ceiling, so he doesn’t see the shock on her face. If he had, he’d probably figure out that she’s never been thanked before either. “I was doing my job.”

“Yeah, but—“ He can’t quite find the words. “It felt like you were taking care of me.” He’s not used to that. Sungjong sometimes takes care of him. His life counselor is supposed to, but it doesn’t feel the way it does with Sungjong. Or with this girl or Woohyun. (He wishes he could take care of Myungsoo.) “I didn’t make you feel good in return.”

She shrugs. “I didn’t hate it. Besides. It was really my own thank you anyway.”

What? He turns his head slowly to look at her. “What does that mean?” He can’t think of anything he’s done that would make her want to thank him. What does that even mean?

“You took good care of him. That means a lot to me.”

Maybe it’s more that ‘he’ only really means one person to Sungyeol right now than it is that he actually figures out who she’s talking about, but either way, he shoots upright, all his weariness gone. “Myungsoo!”

Her eyebrows fly up, and he notes that she’s only got half-brows. Like his own. “You know his name?”

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. “Shit. I—you can’t tell anyone. I forbid you to tell anyone. I—he didn’t—I made him tell, he didn’t want to, I—“

“I won’t tell anyone,” she says, interrupting his sharp babbling. “Of course I won’t tell anyone. But I didn’t think you’d ask him his name.”

Sungyeol’s head is starting to spin. “You know Myungsoo?” He hadn’t thought of that, that Myungsoo would know other servicers. That he might even have friends, the way Sungyeol has Sungjong. It makes him want to cry. 

“He’s in my dorm,” she says. “They put him there after Ar—after someone else aged out.”

“And he—he told you about me?” For the first time since the system informed him that Myungsoo wasn’t available, he feels something sweet stir inside him.

“Well, yes. But I told him about you first.”

“ _What_?”

Something flashes in her eyes. “I don’t—I shouldn’t—do you want to try something new? I brought some toys with me and—“

He grabs her by her shoulders—not hard, and he doesn’t shake her. Just firm, so she has to look at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but _please_ tell me.”

She looks torn, an expression that sits strangely on her cheerful features. She still has such a girlish face, for all she’s a woman now. “I really shouldn’t, I—“

“Seonsaeng-nim. _Please_.” He doesn’t even notice the title coming out of his mouth, doesn’t notice the way her eyes widen at him. It’s just something slipping out, a way of thinking about her on occasion that he’s gotten into the habit of. Teacher. That’s what she is, to him at least.

After a long moment, she gives a sharp nod and takes a deep breath. “He was so—he didn’t know _anything_. And I heard the managers talking about how they were going to send him to someone who wanted a little kid. But of course they don’t actually send out kids.”

“A little kid?” Sungyeol echoes, feeling sick again. _A little kid_?

“He was the next best thing. Because he didn’t know anything.”

“What the _fuck_?”

“I just kept thinking of how it was for me, the first time. And I knew everything. I’d been at the top of all of my classes and I thought I knew how it would—I just couldn’t stop thinking about how it would be for him, when he didn’t know anything, with someone who really wanted a little kid, and he has these eyes, and when he smiles he looks so—“

Sungyeol knows exactly what Myungsoo looks like when he smiles. He’d never considered that it might make other people feel the same way, like Myungsoo was something precious that needed to be taken care of. That needed to be protected.

“Did you do something?” The question rasps out, harsh and maybe accusative, but it’s not like Sungyeol is mad. Just…totally confused, because he can’t imagine how she could do something, that she would—but Myungsoo had come to him. He’d been assigned to someone else, but he’d come to _Sungyeol_. (Somewhere, deep inside of him, a desperate kind of gratitude is starting to stir.)

She just looks at him, not answering, her eyes steady. It’s such a strange look on her face, that sort of solemnity. She’s the kind who should be smiling and laughing all the time. Not looking like this.

“You—you picked me?” The words come out, barely in a whisper, and Sungyeol is discovering a new emotion that can overwhelm.

“I thought—I thought maybe you would be kind to him.”

They’re both silent for a long moment, and Sungyeol discovers he’s got his hand pressed against his heart and that it’s racing under his palm. “I—I tried,” he says after a while, his voice raspy. _I don’t know how good at it I was._ He hadn’t asked his name or anything. He hadn’t known how to be kind, not really. (He still doesn’t really know. But he thinks he’d like to, for Myungsoo.)

Her smile is more wan than any he’s ever seen from her. “I know. He told me.”

Sungyeol shoves an unsteady hand through his hair, pulls his knees up to his chest and rests his eyes against them. This is the most shocking thing he’s ever heard. She’s a servicer, just a servicer, and she had gone against assignment and—

“How did you do it?” It might be easy enough in the computer, but surely she wouldn’t know how to use the program. Sungyeol isn’t even sure whether she can read or not.

“One of the managers likes me. I…made him happy.”

Fuck. She’d had sex with someone when she didn’t even have to, just so that Myungsoo would be sent to Sungyeol.

“What if I sent him back? I could have sent him back.”

She’s quiet for a moment. “Yes. But I thought maybe you wouldn’t.”

More silence now, and Sungyeol is quite sure he couldn’t name all of the feelings that are churning around inside of him. He doesn’t think he could even name half of them.

When she speaks again, her voice is quiet, so much more subdued than he’s heard it. “I just thought it might make the first time…easier for him. I didn’t know you’d request him again.” Sungyeol doesn’t say anything, just rolling his forehead against his knees. “Why—why did you request him again?”

_Hell if I know_ , Sungyeol thinks, but he raises his head and looks at her, trying to think of what to say when he doesn’t even know himself. _He’s special_ , maybe, but no. He can’t. Even that doesn’t seem right.

She studies his face for a long moment and then sighs. “Oh. I didn’t think—maybe I shouldn’t have.”

She definitely shouldn’t have. All the rules say that. If anyone finds out, she’ll—well, he doesn’t know what will happen. She’ll disappear, of course, but what does that mean? He’s heard whispers of it, once or twice; not even Sungjong speaks about things like that out loud. But he’s never really wondered what happens to the ones who disappear. 

“Someone could find out,” he says finally. “You could get in trouble.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “The only people who know are you and me and the man I did the favor for. You aren’t going to tell and I’m not. He can’t—managers can only touch servicers under very controlled circumstances. If they find out what he did, he’ll be disappeared. None of us are going to tell.”

“You didn’t tell Myungsoo?”

“He was already so scared. I didn’t want him to have to worry about that, too.”

Fuck. _Fuck_. This is too much to process. A servicer breaking the rules and someone who wanted a little kid and Myungsoo didn’t even know and—fuck. 

“Sungyeol-ssi.”

He doesn’t raise his head but he makes a questioning sound.

“Maybe you shouldn’t…maybe you shouldn’t request him again.”

Now he does raise his head, slowly, like it takes a lot of effort. “What?”

“Getting…attached. It can make it harder.”

“Lots of people get attached,” he says, thinking of Sunggyu, who’s only ever had service visits from one person. Thinking of Sungjong and Minha. Thinking of Woohyun and whoever requested him. “Some people don’t like variety. And I don’t want anyone but him.” He hadn’t known he meant those words till they come out of his mouth. He only ever wants Myungsoo to come to him, ever again.

He had never thought he’d ever feel that way. It’s a strange feeling, realizing you know yourself less well than you thought you do.

“I mean…it could make it harder for him.”

Oh. 

_Fuck._

“Sometimes it’s okay for us to get attached,” she explains. “But only after we’ve been requested for permanent placement. But even if you requested it, you probably wouldn’t get it. It’s really rare for professionals to have it approved, not unless they’re particularly valuable.”

Like Sungjong. Not like Sungyeol. He’s good at what he does, one of the best, he knows that. But not the way Sungjong is. If they had to, they could replace him easily. Maybe his replacement wouldn’t be quite as good as he is, but that person would be sufficient. 

“What’s it like? When one of you get attached to someone you can’t be permanently placed with?” His throat feels as raw as his voice sounds.

She shrugs, playing with a lock of her hair and examining it closely as though looking for split-ends. Of course she doesn’t have any. “I don’t know. But if the managers notice it, they make sure the servicer doesn’t ever get sent to that person again. They tell them they’ve been permanently placed even if they haven’t.”

Sungyeol absorbs this in silence, then wonders if Woohyun has really been placed. But they hadn’t had time to get attached. It was only the once. Probably he really was. And maybe he has someone who cares about him the way Sungjong does about Minha.

“Look.” She shifts, sitting up on her knees and looking at him dead on for the first time in a long time. “I really think you shouldn’t request him anymore. Myungsoo-ssi isn’t good at hiding what he feels yet. He could give himself away and—maybe in a year or two, once he has more practice at it, you could start requesting him again, but—“

“I understand,” Sungyeol says dully. It’s not agreement, but he just doesn’t want to hear her talking about this. Not anymore.

After a while, Sungyeol says, “You can go take a shower. Then we’ll get some rest.”

She doesn’t argue, just slips off the bed and pads into the bathroom. He lies back down and stares at the ceiling and listens to the running of the water. Attached. So that’s what this is.

After she comes out, he takes his own shower, and then they sleep. Usually when he has a service visit, he makes sure to have sex at least three or four times, but he doesn’t feel like it now. When they wake up, she dresses in silence, and before she turns to go she walks over to him and hugs him.

No one’s ever hugged him before—a real hug, not an embrace before or after sex—except for Sungjong, and he freezes in her arms. “I’m sorry,” she says. She’s standing on her toes and her hair smells nice and clean. “If I’d thought—“ She stops. “Please take care of him.”

She pauses at the door and gives him a smile that’s nothing like her usual bright one. “Thank you,” she says.

 

 

 

A dull haze seems to surround him for the rest of the week, clinging to his skin like unpleasantly wet clothes and making Sungjong shoot him all kinds of concerned looks. But it disappears completely the minute he walks into his room the next Friday night and sees Myungsoo waiting for him.

He has Myungsoo pressed up against the wall, kissing him as deep as he can, before Myungsoo can even get a word out—before Sungyeol even takes off his shoes. He moans with relief at the feeling of Myungsoo’s body against his, the scent of him, the taste of his mouth. After the briefest of moments Myungsoo shoves his fingers into Sungyeol’s hair and kisses him back.

Sungyeol thinks he could do this forever, just keep kissing Myungsoo until they both age out and are sent to the retirement floors (not together, of course. Servicers and administrators would never be on the same floor, not even in retirement). He presses Myungsoo as firmly against the wall as he can, overcome by a strange need to keep him there, like if Sungyeol keeps his body between Myungsoo and the rest of the world, everyone else will forget he exists and Sungyeol will be able to keep him forever. He runs his hands over every bit of Myungsoo’s body and face he can reach, and Myungsoo’s fingers tighten in his hair.

When they finally have to pull back, breath rasping out and hearts pounding against each other’s’ chests, they stare at each other for a long, long time.

When Sungyeol finally finds words to say, they’re anti-climactic. “Your hair is different.” It’s a brown color now, where it had been natural—Sungyeol assumes—black before. 

Myungsoo extracts his fingers from Sungyeol’s hair and wraps his arms around Sungyeol’s waist, pressing his cheek against Sungyeol’s shoulder. “One of my patrons requested it.”

“Oh.” Sungyeol hadn’t known you could do that. Probably only administrators could, actually. If a professional didn’t like the hairstyle of a servicer, they were probably just advised to request a different servicer. Sungyeol tries not to think about the one who made this request. That maybe he—or she?—is the one who made Myungsoo unavailable last week. “Is that what you call the people you service? Patrons?”

“Yeah.” Myungsoo doesn’t seem particularly interested in this conversation, because he just kisses Sungyeol again. Sungyeol doesn’t mind.

Even if Sungyeol doesn’t like to think about where Myungsoo’s gotten his experience that isn’t with Sungyeol himself, he can admit to himself that sex is so much more fluid now that Myungsoo knows what he’s doing. They don’t even have to talk about it at all, Sungyeol doesn’t have to give instructions, it just sort of all happens, unfolding naturally and without any planning. And it’s still so fucking good, better than it is with anyone else. Desperate, at first, like they’re trying to drink each other in as quickly as possible. And then long and drawn out and deep as possible. Every second of it is better than anything else in Sungyeol’s life.

Afterwards, when the sweat is cooling on their skin, Sungyeol finds he’s laying with his head on Myungsoo’s abdomen, Myungsoo’s fingers combing lazily through his hair in a way that’s simple but so soothing. He has Myungsoo’s other hand tight in his.

“I tried to request you last week but you were unavailable,” Sungyeol says, taking deep breaths of Myungsoo’s sweaty scent.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. I was with—an administrator. They get first pick.”

“I know.”

Sungyeol doesn’t ever want to move again. He’s sated, tired in that specific way he only ever is after particularly good sex, in that specific way that he loves. It’s better than it usually is, though, because Myungsoo is here.

“Myungsoo?”

“Hmmm?”

“Do you have any friends?”

Myungsoo pauses, considering. “What’s a friend?”

Tears prick at Sungyeol’s eyes and he presses the heel of his free hand against them. “It’s like…people that you like a lot and that like you back. And you like to be with them more than with anyone else.”

“Oh.” Myungsoo doesn’t stop playing with his hair, and Sungyeol is glad. “Do you have friends?”

“I have the greatest friend in the world. His name is Sungjong.”

“That’s a nice name.”

“Yeah.”

There’s silence for a moment and then Myungsoo asks, voice a little tentative. “Am I your friend?”

Sungyeol rolls over and pushes himself up onto his elbows so he can kiss Myungsoo’s nose. “You’re better than a friend. More than a friend.”

Myungsoo smiles, his pleased smile that makes his face crumple up and his eyes shine, even as he drops them, cheeks flushing. “Oh. What’s better than a friend?”

“I don’t know.” What Minha is to Sungjong. That’s the only time he’s ever seen better-than-a-friend. But he doesn’t know what to call it. He’ll have to ask Sungjong later. “What about me?” he asks, teasing sliding into his voice. He can only tease Sungjong like this, and Niel and Sunggyu only sometimes. The few times he’s tried it with other people, they looked so scandalized he knew he’d get in trouble if he kept it up. But he wants to do it with Myungsoo. “Am I your friend?”

As before, Myungsoo looks confused for a second before he smiles shyly again. “You’re better than a friend,” he answers, cheeks pink, and then he kisses Sungyeol and it’s a long time before either of them talk again.

“I do have a friend, though. I think,” Myungsoo says later. Now Sungyeol is lying on his back, and Myungsoo’s chin is resting on Sungyeol’s belly and from time to time he presses kisses against the skin. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. She lives in the dorm with me.”

Sungyeol has to fight to keep his stomach from lurching. “That’s nice.”

“Yeah. She’s really nice to me. Sometimes she hugs me, and I like that a lot. And she lets me sleep in the same bed with her sometimes.”

“What?” Can servicers even do that? Surely they’re kept from having sex with each other. Surely that’s against the rules. Surely his teacher-girl _wouldn’t do that_. Or at least Myungsoo wouldn’t. Surely?

Myungsoo laughs and pushes Sungyeol’s head back down. “We just sleep. I sleep better next to someone. She tells me things and I can ask her questions and it’s good. I like it better than any other time.”

“Any other time?” Sungyeol has probably never pouted in his life, but he is right now.

Myungsoo laughs again. “Any other time but with you,” he says and lightly bites just below Sungyeol’s belly button. 

“Ya!” Sungyeol shouts at him, and soon enough they’re tussling on the bed, and Myungsoo is laughing so hard Sungyeol thinks he might hurt himself, but he can’t say anything because he’s laughing too, as they wrestle and tickle and shout. 

 

 

 

Sungyeol keeps his arms tight around Myungsoo even as they walk towards the door the next morning. It’s hard to walk, pressed against each other like that, so they more stumble towards the door, but Sungyeol doesn’t want to let go until he really has to. 

“I’ll miss you,” he says, kissing Myungsoo’s dimple. He’s never said that to anyone before.

“I’ll miss you, too,” Myungsoo answers, face shy but eyes shining. He drops his head and kisses the mole just below Sungyeol’s collarbone.

"More than clouds?" Sungyeol asks.

Myungsoo stares at him for a second, then laughs. "More than clouds."

“Think about me all the time,” Sungyeol commands and then kisses Myungsoo’s Adam’s apple. It bobs as Myungsoo laughs.

“You have to think about me all the time, too, then.”

“I will,” Sungyeol says, and Myunsoo shudders and ducks his head.

Sungyeol kisses him goodbye, but when Myungsoo tries to extricate himself from Sungyeol’s arms, he just holds on tighter. “Wait a second. What’s your friend’s name?”

Myungsoo gives him a look like he’s wondering why he even wants to know that. “Ellin-sunbae.”

“Ellin,” Sungyeol repeats. So that’s his teacher-girl’s name. “That’s a nice name.”

“Yeah,” Myungsoo says with a confused little laugh.

Sungyeol kisses him again. “I’ll see you next week,” he says.

“You’ll try,” Myungsoo corrects, and one of Sungyeol’s intestines loops itself into a knot.

“Yeah.”

Myungsoo kisses him one more time and then he’s gone and Sungyeol is left standing there, arms empty.

He wonders if Myungsoo will go back and climb into Ellin’s bed and tell her about Sungyeol. She’ll probably be mad if she hears. But Sungyeol doesn’t care. 

He hadn’t for one minute even considered not requesting Myungsoo again.


	7. seven

Myungsoo is available the next week, but not the week after that or the one after that, and the suspense of whether he’ll be able to see Myungsoo each week starts distracting Sungyeol so much that even Sungjong begins to look alarmed. 

“Hyung—hyung, you can’t be like this. Someone will _notice_.”

But what’s there to notice? It’s not like Sungyeol’s work is suffering. In fact, it’s better than ever, because it’s the only escape he has from constant thoughts of Myungsoo (missing Myungsoo, worrying about Myungsoo, resenting whoever else is touching Myungsoo). When he’s in the lab or in his office, he can flip a switch in his mind and focus so entirely on work that nothing else can slip through, his racing brain even better than it’s ever been at making connections and researching new compounds. When the meal bell or the end of the day bell dings, it always jerks his head back in surprise, eyes bleary and blinking as he emerges from total concentration, and it’s like waking up just in time to slam into a concrete wall: Myungsoo isn’t here and he won’t be for however many days and Sungyeol doesn’t know how to deal with that.

And the not knowing how to deal is heavier than he’d ever imagined. He’s staggering under the weight of it, every moment (not just waking ones—his dreams have turned on him too) that he’s not working his mind is on Myungsoo. Sungjong says that he’s brooding, that he looks terrible, and his voice is a mixture of concern and sharp reproach; Niel keeps asking him if he’s okay, and even Sunggyu’s tiny little eyes have noticed: Sungyeol thinks his sunbae might actually be worried, too, even if he expresses it in dry insults.

But Sungyeol can’t _help_ it. He ends up snapping—almost shouting—at Sungjong one day: “You don’t know what it’s like, you have Minha with you _all the time_ and she’s always there when you get home and when you aren’t with her you know she’s waiting for you!”

Sungjong had shushed him, eyes so wide Sungyeol had almost thought he looked scared, except Sungjong is never scared. No one had heard them; they’d been in an elevator, but Sungjong had given him a harsh lecture on never saying anything like that ever again, hyung, _ever_.

Sungyeol knows he’s acting different than he ever has, sulking and surly where he was once as close to carefree as anyone ever is, at least according to Sungjong. But he doesn’t have any idea of just how much it’s taking a toll on him physically until a couple of weeks later when Myungsoo is finally-- _finally_ \--waiting for him when he gets home from work and his eyes grow huge when he sees Sungyeol enter and stumble towards him.

“Sungyeol-ss—Sungyeol-ah, what’s wrong?” Myungsoo asks, voice thick, his arms automatically catching Sungyeol as he slumps against him. “Are you sick?”

“I’m so sick,” Sungyeol mumbles, nuzzling his nose against the curve of Myungsoo’s neck, breathing in his scent, wrapping his arms around Myungsoo’s waist so tightly it probably hurts. 

“We have to get you to the infirmary—Sungyeol, let’s go right now!”

Myungsoo’s voice is shrill with alarm, his arms tightening around Sungyeol, and Sungyeol wants to cry—or laugh, long and hysterical—at the thought of Myungsoo being worried about _him_.

“Not that kind of sick.” He can barely get the energy to form the words, but his mouth is so close to Myungsoo’s ear that Myungsoo hears him anyway. “I’m sick when I can’t see you.”

He doesn’t have to look to see that Myungsoo’s skin is flushing hot and red; Sungyeol can feel the heat against his own cheek. He knows, too, that Myungsoo is doing that eyes-shining head-duck thing he does, and he’s so cute, so _Myungsoo_ that Sungyeol could die. 

“Sungyeol—“ Myungsoo says softly.

“Myungsoo,” Sungyeol interrupts, and then energy isn’t a problem at all, because he’s pushing Myungsoo over towards the bed and then crawling all over him and tears—weary and acid-hot—are pricking his eyes as Myungsoo gasps and whimpers.

No matter how close they get, Sungyeol still doesn’t feel like enough of him is touching enough of Myungsoo. He wants more— _more_ , but what more is to be had? This feeling reminds him of being hungry, the few times when he’s worked or studied so long that he forgot to eat (this resulted in meetings with his life-coach and firm reminders that proper nutrition is important), a gnawing feeling that needs to be satisfied. Only when he’s hungry, he knows what to do, what it is his stomach is screeching at him about. Right now, he has no idea what it is that he needs: Myungsoo, of course, but now Myungsoo is right here, against him and around him and it still doesn’t seem like enough. Sungyeol has Myungsoo fuck him, hoping that that will help (he rarely does this, preferring to penetrate, but it’s not something entirely new to him, and he likes it well enough), but even though it’s new and just as good, Myungsoo _inside_ him, it still doesn’t feel like enough.

Myungsoo seems slightly bewildered at first by Sungyeol’s desperation, and after the sex, when he sees Sungyeol’s red eyes, his own are so concerned, his hands gentle as they brush hair away from Sungyeol’s face. Sungyeol closes his eyes, just wanting to feel Myungsoo’s hands on him forever.

“Sungyeol, something’s wrong. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Sungyeol doesn’t say anything for a long time, just focusing on Myungsoo’s sweat-slick skin against his, the drumming of Myungsoo’s heart slowly evening out to resting pace. Why can’t it be like this, all the time? Why can’t everything in the world just be this, him and Myungsoo alone and together?

Myungsoo blinks, startled, when Sungyeol suddenly lurches upright to lean over Myungsoo, his arms holding him up. “Do you think about me?” he demands.

Myungsoo blinks again. “I’ve told you I do.”

“All the time?” Sungyeol doesn’t like the way his voice sounds, but he can’t control it. “You said you’d think of me all the time. You said you would.”

Myungsoo opens his mouth, looks flustered, closes it. “I—I—“

“Tell me you think of me all the time.” He doesn’t like this tone any more than the last one, doesn’t like how it sounds like he’s begging, how desperate he sounds. 

“I—sometimes I don’t,” Myungsoo says, and before the words can pierce through Sungyeol’s ribs and into his heart, he hurries to clarify. “I don’t like to think about you when I’m—when I’m working. It’s not—it doesn’t seem right—I don’t want—“ He breaks off, looking frustrated, as though he’s trying to figure out how to phrase it but it isn’t working. Sungyeol is holding his breath. “I don’t want them to have you too,” Myungsoo finishes finally, his face saying that the words weren’t quite what he wanted to say, but it’s enough for Sungyeol.

He collapses back into Myungsoo, pressing his face against Myungsoo’s chest and sliding his arms around his waist. Oh. Yes, that’s good. Good that Myungsoo wants to separate him from his work, that he doesn’t want what they have to be touched by what he has to do. Yes. That’s good.

“So I’m not just work?” he asks, voice raspy against Myungsoo’s skin.

He feels Myungsoo’s fingers in his hair again. Myungsoo seems to like hair. “Am I just a servicer?”

“ _No_.” Sungyeol can’t help it; he bites down on the skin on the side of Myungsoo’s torso, but not nearly as hard as he wants to. He wants to bite him so hard that it will leave a mark forever, one that not even the servicers’ special surgeries can remove, one that anyone who touches Myungsoo will see. He doesn’t, though, because it would hurt Myungsoo, and he doesn’t want to do that.

Myungsoo gasps at the feeling of Sungyeol’s teeth. “You’re not work.”

Sungyeol wants to ask what this means: if Myungsoo’s not a servicer to Sungyeol and Sungyeol isn’t work to Myungsoo, then what _are_ they? But it’s no use asking that question, because Myungsoo knows even less about things like this than Sungyeol does. Neither of them know the answer. 

Sungyeol thinks about it a lot, though, especially when they’re not together. He could just ask Sungjong, he knows; Sungjong would know what words to give him. But it seems important, somehow, that Sungyeol figure this out himself.

Maybe it’s because he’s been thinking about it so much that he doesn’t remember the paperwork until he’s sprawled out on top of Myungsoo trying to remember how to move again after orgasm.

He remembers suddenly, apropos of nothing, and shoots upright. “Shit!”

“What?” Myungsoo looks up, alarmed.

“I forgot to—it’s a thing for work.” There’d been a bit of paperwork he hadn’t finished today; something in the labs had gone wrong and it had taken more time than scheduled to correct it, so Sungyeol hadn’t gotten around to filing the paperwork. Usually working outside work hours is highly frowned upon, but Sungyeol would rather deal with that than with Sunggyu’s dry comments about how he can’t be relied upon to complete his work. They’ll overlook it; it’s not like he does this often.

Sungyeol scrambles out of bed and over to the desk where he grabs his work pad out of his briefcase and hurries back over to Myungsoo. Maybe it should be weird, doing this naked in bed with Myungsoo beside him, but instead it’s just nice. Myungsoo presses himself up against Sungyeol’s arm, his chin resting on Sungyeol’s shoulder, and watches Sungyeol’s fingers fly.

“This is what you do for work?”

Sungyeol’s fingers slow for a moment before speeding up again. Huh. They haven’t talked about this? “Yeah. I’m a chemist.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s….” How does he explain this to a kid who doesn’t know anything? “I study the composition of matter and its properties.” That’s the official definition, but there’s no way in hell Myungsoo understands that. “I study the stuff that makes up other stuff.”

Myungsoo looks skeptical. “What kind of other stuff?”

This paperwork is easy; he can complete it while talking to Myungsoo at the same time. It’s nice like this, his back up against the headboard, Myungsoo warm against him. Work should be like this. He mentally snorts at the look on Sunggyu’s face if Sungyeol ever suggested it. “Anything. I do a lot of research on how to create new substances. Like…” How to describe it? “If you’re sick, you take medicine, right? I study lots of different things to create new kinds of medicine. Or things like that.” This doesn’t even begin to explain all he does, but it’s the closest he can get, especially considering that half the time he doesn’t even know what he’s working on, not when his assignment is so specific that he has no idea what other results his results are going to be combined with to create whatever it is the managers are wanting.

“That should be a four,” Myungsoo says, pointing towards an equation Sungyeol had just finished solving.

Sungyeol rolls his eyes; that equation was incredibly simple; he can’t believe he messed it up. Maybe work shouldn’t be like this; maybe Myungsoo’s distracting him more than he thought. He hurriedly types in the correct answer. “Thanks.”

Wait.

Sungyeol lowers his pad to his lap very slowly. He can feel his pulse pounding in his hands. “How did you know that?” he asks slowly, each word formed carefully.

“What?” Myungsoo lifts his chin off of Sungyeol’s shoulder, confused.

It takes so much effort to form each word. “That it should be a four?”

Myungsoo cocks his head to the side in that way that makes him seem so much younger than he is. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

Well, yes. But that’s not the _point_. “But how did you know it?”

Myungsoo’s eyebrows furrow. “Because when this number is divided by this number it equals—“

“I know what it equals! I want to know how you know how to do math!”

The look Myungsoo gives him at his shrill demand is one Sungyeol has never seen before. He looks troubled. No. Guarded. Sungyeol hates it, but he hates his stomach roiling like this even more.

“Math? Is that what it is, with numbers?”

“Ya, just tell me—“

“The manager taught me.”

Sungyeol gapes at him. “What manager?”

“When I was a laborer. I was a building laborer—construction. We worked on the new buildings.” 

Sungyeol hadn’t thought about that, new buildings. But of course they must need them. When this one gets old, they’ll just move into a new one, knock this one down, start another. He’d had a vague idea that that was how it works, though he hadn’t thought much about it. There were lots of buildings like this one, and things wear out. Entropy. He thinks it was probably several decades ago that this building last moved locations. He could ask Sungjong for the exact number, he would know.

But he hadn’t thought much about who constructed the building he lives in. Laborers. Laborers like Myungsoo, with calluses on their hands, who know what clouds look like. 

“Why—why did he teach you?” Sungyeol’s throat feels raw; his words sound rawer.

“He gave me lots of things like that to do—math? So we would know how to build.”

This manager was a—a shirker? Sungyeol’s heard about them, people who don’t want to do their assigned work, but he’s never actually met one because the managers and administrators put an end to that immediately. “What did he do while you were doing this math that he was supposed to be doing?”

Myungsoo shrugs. “I don’t know. He’d go away for a while and then come back and if I got the math wrong then we were working wrong and—“

“And what?”

Myungsoo looks away. “Nothing.”

“No—Myungsoo—what did he do if you’d gotten the math wrong?”

“It only happened once or twice. Really.”

“Myungsoo—“

“He hit me.”

_Fuck_. Sungyeol’s heard about that, too, people getting hit by their managers for messing up, but that’s _very_ illegal. Any manager who did that would be reported and then disappear.

Sungyeol finds his hands are shaking, knots them together in vain hope of controlling them. Imagines a bruise like the ones he sometimes got if he tripped and fell during exercise regimen as a kid, purples and blues and greens, only not on his own pale knees but blooming across Myungsoo’s tan cheek or strong shoulder. _Fuck_.

“He’s not supposed to do that,” he says, words very precise even if they come out in a croak. “Couldn’t you report him?” 

Myungsoo looks baffled. “Who would I report him to?”

“One of the other managers?”

“Why would they believe me?”

Why wouldn’t they? Lying is against the rules. “You could show them the marks. From where he—from where he hit you.”

Myungsoo looks very much as though he had never considered this. 

“Ya!” Sungyeol’s voice shakes even as he grabs Myungsoo by the bicep. “You should have reported him! He wasn’t allowed to hit you! That’s against the rules!”

“It was just once or twice,” Myungsoo says, face crumpled in confusion, like he can’t figure out why Sungyeol is so upset about this. “Just at the beginning when I was nervous because it was new. After that I didn’t make mistakes anymore.”

“It doesn’t _matter_. Even once should have been reported! How old were you?”

Again, Myungsoo looks confused as to why Sungyeol is asking that. Sungyeol doesn’t really know himself, but for some reason it feels important. “I don’t know. It was after I wasn’t an apprentice anymore.”

Apprentice—that’s right. Most laborers don’t have classes like professionals and administrators do. Instead they start as apprentices when they’re very young, learning by following around someone else with the same kind of work and watching them. How old would Myungsoo have been when he graduated to an actual worker? Fifteen, sixteen?

“Besides, they reassigned him after a while and then I didn’t get to do the math anymore.”

“Reassigned him? Where?”

“I don’t know. One day there was a new manager and she said he’d been reassigned. That’s all.”

Reassigned. No. He was probably disappeared. For being a shirker. Maybe for hitting a worker. Sungyeol is grimly glad. “Fuck.”

“Sungyeol? Are you going to finish your work?”

Sungyeol looks over at Myungsoo and realizes he’d been staring at the wall, deep in thought for a few minutes. He looks down at the pad in his lap, staring blankly at the words for a moment. Then he gets an idea. 

“Hey. What’s the answer to this one?”

Myungsoo gives him a skeptical look, then looks at the equation. He barely pauses for a moment. “783.459.”

“Fuck!”

“What? That’s right.”

“Yeah, that’s right. What about this one?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“What?”

“That squiggly thing.”

“Ah. That’s a symbol. It stands for something else. It means….”

Even as Sungyeol is explaining some of the symbols Myungsoo has never seen before, his mind is racing. Myungsoo can do _math_. And he’s good at it. He must be, if the manager only hit him once or twice. But Sungyeol had always thought that the laborers are laborers because they can’t be anything else. Because their brains aren’t suited to higher work. Because they aren’t capable of the things professionals do, just like professionals aren’t capable of the things administrators do. Now that he’s thinking about it, he isn’t quite sure why he thinks that; he doesn’t think anyone ever said that straight out to him. And yet…he’d always thought it was true. It must have been allusions, lead assumptions that made him think that way, and he’d never questioned it.

But maybe…maybe that’s not true. Maybe there are laborers who are capable of lots more than that, but they never know it because they’re laborers. But if that’s true, then how do people end up being laborers? How do they get chosen? How do people get assigned to different roles if capacity and ability aren’t the deciding factors? Are all laborers walking around with the potential to be servicers—or professionals? To learn to read? To do work they don’t even know anyone does?

Those questions are too big, too…scary to really think about, so Sungyeol focuses instead on teaching Myungsoo the symbols he needs to know to do the math on Sungyeol’s paperwork, the symbols that are needed in chemistry but not in building. Myungsoo learns fast, and soon he’s telling Sungyeol all the answers quicker than Sungyeol can work them out in his own head. Myungsoo’s eyes shine every time he gets one right—which is every answer he gives—and when they come to the end of the paperwork and Sungyeol submits it, he looks a little let down. So Sungyeol pulls up his old textbooks on his pad and Myungsoo’s face lights right back up again.

After that, whenever Myungsoo comes to him, they spend a little bit of their time doing math. Part of Sungyeol is surprised that he’s not annoyed at this, annoyed that Myungsoo’s focusing on something other than him when he craves Myungsoo’s attention so much. But the way Myungsoo smiles when Sungyeol pulls out his pad, the way his eyes look when he’s concentrating, the rapidity with which he learns everything Sungyeol teaches him, the squirm of satisfaction Sungyeol feels in belly when Myungsoo masters a new concept: Sungyeol likes this time. Maybe not as much as the time they spend having sex or even the time they spend lazily wrapped around each other and talking about nothing. But he likes it a lot. And more than that: Myungsoo likes it. And somehow that seems really important.

It gets to be that when Sungyeol comes into his room on the nights when he has Myungsoo, Myungsoo is sitting at his desk with his non-work pad fired up, furiously doing math. He looks up at Sungyeol with a grin when Sungyeol enters, and Sungyeol leans down to kiss him, and Sungyeol feels this fierce, unnamable feeling spiraling through him, and then they put the pad aside for a while and lose themselves in each other. But it’s always pulled out at some point or another during the night, so Myungsoo can have fun and show off what he’s learned to Sungyeol.

“You know, I could get you some textbooks to take with you,” Sungyeol says one night when Myungsoo’s lying practically on top of him, fingers flying over the pad. Sungyeol leans down and kisses Myungsoo’s fingers and Myungsoo just wiggles them before going back to typing, not about to be distracted.

“I don’t have my own pad. The managers would notice the new software,” Myungsoo answers without even looking up.

“No, I mean physical textbooks. Real books.” He’d explained real books to Myungsoo once, so he knows Myungsoo knows what they are.

Myungsoo’s eyebrow dips. “Do they have those still?”

“Most of them are phased out, like I told you. But Sungjong has access to them. He’d get me some, if I asked.”

Myungsoo looks conflicted for a moment, conflicted like he hasn’t since that first time when Sungyeol told him it was his choice of whether to stay or be sent back. Then he shakes his head. “They’d find them and I’d get in trouble.”

That’s right. Myungsoo doesn’t have his own space. He shares a dorm with other servicers and one of them could report him. It’s better not to risk it.

“I like doing math here, anyway,” Myungsoo says. “It’s best here with you.”

That makes Sungyeol feel hot all over and he pulls the pad out of Myungsoo’s hands, tosses it aside and rolls on top of Myungsoo, who laughs in response and keeps laughing even as they kiss.

It’s best here with Myungsoo for Sungyeol, too. Better than anything he’s ever known.

 

 

 

But his nights with Myungsoo are rare. Even one night a week would be too rare to Sungyeol, but at least half the time Myungsoo already has another assignment and Sungyeol has to wait even longer to see him. On those nights, he requests Ellin, even if he’s not really sure why.

The first time he requests her again, she walks right up to him as soon as he’s in the room and punches him in the arm. Hard.

“Ya!”

No one’s ever hit him before, though Sungjong sometimes flicks him on the forehead when he’s being ‘particularly stupid.’ Hitting is very much against the rules. It’s not like it will leave a mark or anything, but still.

“I told you to leave him alone! I told you!”

“I know you did!”

“Well, listen to me!”

“I can’t!”

“What does that even mean?”

Sungyeol hasn’t had a yelling argument like this in a long time. Shouldn’t she be deferential like other servicers? Or maybe she thinks she can get away with it because she knows about Myungsoo. Maybe she thinks she can report that Sungyeol is getting too ‘attached’ and take Myungsoo away from him. Not that he’d ever let that happen. Ever.

“It means I have to see him. I have to.”

Ellin is not pleased by this explanation; he can tell by the way she snorts and flops onto the couch. “You’re stupid.”

“Ya!”

“Well, you are.”

She lets it go then, but before she leaves—every time before she leaves—she tells him very seriously that he needs to not request Myungsoo for a while. Every time he ignores her.

They don’t have sex anymore. It’s weird, but for some reason Sungyeol feels dirty just at the thought and even though she’s still so pretty and he knows just how good she is at her job, part of him doesn’t really want her. Doesn’t really want anybody who isn’t Myungsoo. And that weirds him out more than just about anything.

It weirds out his life counselor too—or at least she thinks it’s worth noting (he’s pretty sure she’s never been weirded out in her life). At his monthly meeting, she looks at him over the top of his file with searching eyes. “You’re requesting the same servicer every week now. And when he isn’t available, you request the same backup. This is a break in pattern, Sungyeol-ssi.”

Sungyeol had known this was coming, and he’s been worried about it, trying to think of what he’d say to deflect suspicion. Of course the life counselors have noticed a break in pattern. Breaks in pattern are _always_ noticed. They’re Causes for Concern. They’re probably monitoring everything about him more closely. And that’s a Cause for _his_ Concern.

But in this moment, he isn’t worried at all. He feels like he did when he lied to her about not knowing that Myungsoo wasn’t supposed to be sent to him: confident and in control and sure of exactly what to do. 

“Sunggyu sunbae always said I’d get tired of trying someone new every time.” His mouth curls up in a self-deprecating grin. “I always laughed at him. I’m just glad he doesn’t know he was right.”

The very corners of his life counselor’s mouth turn up. It isn’t quite a smile, but it’s as close as she gets. “There’s no need to tell him, is there? So you’ve found someone who suits you best?”

Sungyeol shrugs, a loose motion, careless. “It’s fun doing lots of different things with just one person instead of doing the same thing with lots of different people. He can keep up. I’d rather not risk that someone they send not be able to. And when he’s not available, the girl is capable of the same.” It feels weird, not calling them by their names. He still hasn’t told Sungjong that names are important—Sungjong would gloat even more than Gyu-nim does when he’s right.

“Ah. So you’ve had complaints about other servicers?”

“No, of course not. It’s just that some of the things I want to try are easier to do with someone you’re…used to. You know?”

“Mmm. I see. So it’s nothing about these two in particular, just familiarity?”

Sungyeol had always thought he’d hate himself for lying. But now he doesn’t even hesitate. “That’s right.” 

“Good, good. Many people do grow tired of variety and prefer familiarity as they get older, though I admit that I never thought you would be one of them.”

“I was surprised myself.”

“Of course. Do you think you will prefer these particular servicers for some time or…?”

“I’m really not thinking that far ahead. But no, I don’t see any reason to think I’ll stick with them long-term. But for now, they’re fine.”

“Excellent.” She scribbles something into his file, and Sungyeol watches the stylus loop, feeling proud. The solemnity—almost suspicion—that had been in her voice at the beginning of the meeting had leached away more with every word he said, and now she looks completely unconcerned, back to her matter-of-fact self. Sungyeol can’t wait to tell Ellin how wrong she was. They’ll never suspect that he’s gotten ‘attached.’

Ellin isn’t nearly as impressed as he thought she would be, but then he isn’t really surprised. Ellin doesn’t seem impressed with anything about him, and while it irritates him, it also feels kind of…relaxing. In a way he only ever feels around Sungjong. Maybe it’s because they’re not having sex anymore (which she hasn’t said a word about, as strange as it must be to her), because he lets her flop down on his bed and play games on his pad, lets her pick music to play and watches her dance, because they actually talk. He’d never thought he could be like this with a servicer—never thought he’d _want_ to. But it’s like their mutual secret of how Myungsoo got sent to him has put them on the same level, at least in the world of Sungyeol’s apartment, and one day it occurs to Sungyeol that they’ve become friends.

Not that he’d say that to her; she’d probably laugh in his face. But Sungyeol kind of likes the thought. Now he has two friends and Myungsoo, who’s better-than-a-friend. But that means he has one more friend that Myungsoo does, and he doesn’t really like that. When the solution to that inequality occurs to him, he’s annoyed with himself that he hadn’t thought of it long before now. But as soon as it enters his mind, he knows it’s perfect, and he’s ‘unbearably excited’ (as Sunggyu says) for the next week as he waits for Myungsoo to be sent to him.

 

 

 

“I’m almost done with this book, Sungyeol, can we get a new one later?” Myungsoo asks without even looking up from the pad that he’s working on. Sungyeol is used to it taking Myungsoo a moment to finish up his math problems when Sungyeol walks into the room; they’ve fallen into a bit of a pattern, even. Sungyeol will walk over to the fridge and pull out his bottle of soju and Myungsoo will finish what he’s doing, shut down the pad, and come over to stand behind Sungyeol as he pours, wrapping his arms around Sungyeol’s waist and pressing his chest against Sungyeol’s back. Sungyeol likes the backhugs, mostly because they mean that Myungsoo is now comfortable touching him first. At the beginning, he would always wait until Sungyeol touched him first to touch back, but now he feels comfortable enough to reach for Sungyeol first, and every time he does, Sungyeol feels like his chest is going to explode. 

Seeing Myungsoo happy doing something he enjoys and waiting for him, then the backhugs—that’s the best way of starting their time together Sungyeol can imagine. They always have sex, sometimes for hours on end, most of the night, sometimes not nearly so long, and then they’ll end up tangled up together with Myungsoo working on his math or just talking. Most of the time Myungsoo likes best to sit between Sungyeol’s legs with Sungyeol’s back to the headboard and Myungsoo leaning against him. (Sungyeol likes that best too.) But the position doesn’t really matter, not nearly as much as just being together. Sometimes they don’t say anything for hours on end and that’s still good, too. Everything with Myungsoo is good.

But tonight Sungyeol doesn’t walk over to the fridge to start their routine. Instead, he just stands in the door, shifting from foot to foot, and after a moment Myungsoo looks up, forehead already crinkled in confusion as to why Sungyeol is just standing there, and that’s when he gasps.

Sungyeol had been looking forward to the surprise, but he hadn’t really thought it through or he would have known Myungsoo would react like this. His eyes enormous with fear, Myungsoo shoots upright out of his chair, his knee banging against the underside of the desk, the chair toppling over behind him. It had to have hurt, that bang, but Myungsoo just bows immediately, head missing the edge of the desk by centimeters.

It takes Sungyeol a second to figure out what it is that Myungsoo is muttering, barely audible, over and over. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.”

Sungyeol barely even feels Sungjong slug him in the arm, not when Myungsoo is so scared. Of course he’s scared. He thinks someone just discovered that he’s referring to Sungyeol casually and playing with his pad. Of course he’s _terrified_.

“Ya, Lee Sungyeol! You didn’t even _warn_ him?”

“I—“

Next moment, Sungjong has Myungsoo by the elbow and is pulling him out of his bow. “It’s okay,” he says, and his voice is gentler than Sungyeol has ever heard it before. “I’m Sungjong, I’m Sungyeol’s best friend. You’re not going to get in trouble. I’m sorry I scared you. This idiot should have warned you I was coming.” He shoots a dirty look over his shoulder at Sungyeol who shrugs apologetically.

Myungsoo looks like his heart rate is falling and color is coming back into his cheeks, but he still bows again. “It’s nice to meet you, Sungjong-ssi.”

“It’s really nice to meet you, too,” Sungjong says, studying Myungsoo carefully as he straightens. Sungyeol wonders what he sees. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Myungsoo’s cheeks flush a little and he opens his mouth and Sungyeol knows he’s going to say that he’s heard a lot about Sungjong too, only instead he says, “You’re really pretty.”

Sungyeol is still feeling too overwhelmed at the sight of the two most important people in his life _together_ to react with hilarity at the moment, but he definitely will remember this later (and torture Sungjong with it), especially the way Myungsoo looked horrified as though he hadn’t meant to say that at all and how Sungjong beamed at the compliment. Sungjong has always loved being complimented on his looks.

“Thank you. You’re very handsome yourself,” he says graciously before turning to Sungyeol and shouting, “Ya! Aren’t you going to apologize?”

Sungyeol can’t be in the same room with Myungsoo without touching him, so he takes a step forward and takes Myungsoo’s hand in his own. “I’m sorry, I should have warned you. I just…I really wanted you to meet Sungjong. And I thought it would be a nice surprise.”

Too late, it occurs to him that Myungsoo’s probably never had a ‘nice’ surprise in his life, that every surprise he’s ever had has been a bad one, like being told that he’s going to become a servicer. 

“I know your friend,” Sungyeol continues with an awkward shrug. “And I wanted you to know mine.”

Myungsoo has recovered most of his composure, and though he still looks overwhelmed, he manages to squeeze Sungyeol’s hand. “It’s okay,” he says and Sungyeol has to bend over to kiss him before Sungjong ushers them both over to the sitting room.

He hadn’t really thought of what they would talk about; his thought process hadn’t moved much further than ‘Myungsoo and Sungjong in the same room!’ But Sungjong does just fine, of course, making Myungsoo feel comfortable—and making him laugh, almost as much as Sungyeol makes him laugh. Sungyeol would feel pissy about Sungjong being able to make him laugh like that, but he can’t really feel that way when Myungsoo’s face is crumpling with mirth. Ten minutes in and the two of them are talking like they’ve known each other their whole lives (even if Sungjong does most of the talking), so much so that Sungyeol can barely get a word in. Myungsoo stares at Sungjong a lot (enough that Sungyeol feels a little twinge of jealousy), and Sungyeol doesn’t know if it’s because Sungjong is so ‘pretty’ or if he’s just fascinated at seeing Sungyeol’s friend that he’s heard a lot about, but Sungyeol hopes it’s the latter. But he doesn’t really mind; it’s a kind of pleasure he’d never imagined, seeing the two people he likes best liking each other. They talk a lot about him, anyway, and Sungjong says lots of snarky things that make Sungyeol yell at him in protest, but in between Sungjong manages to get information out of Myungsoo about his past without seeming to do it at all. 

Sungyeol had been so caught up in the excitement of his great idea that he hadn’t even realized until now that he was also very nervous. If they had decided they didn’t like each other, he doesn’t know what he would have done. But as they talk and laugh and look so comfortable together, Sungyeol feels something that had been taut and quivering ease within him. 

Sungjong doesn’t stay for very long, just an hour or so, because Sungyeol had told him that he wanted lots of time with Myungsoo tonight. But the time passes quickly and when he stands to go, Sungjong reaches out and hugs Myungsoo. It shocks Sungyeol; Sungjong isn’t the hugging type, not even with Sungyeol himself, much less with someone he’s never met before. But Myungsoo looks so happy at the gesture that Sungyeol is glad Sungjong thought of it; maybe Sungjong had been remembering that Sungyeol told him he liked to be touched. Either way, Sungyeol is beaming when he kisses Myungsoo quickly and tells him he’ll be right back—he’s walking Sungjong back to his room.

Why does he call you that?” Myungsoo whispers as Sungjong slips out the door to wait for Sungyeol in the hall.

“What? ‘Hyung’?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know. I don’t even really know what it means. He tried to explain it, but I didn’t really understand. He picked it up from a book or something—he said something about preserving his cultural heritage. They tried to make him stop at first, but Sungjong doesn’t really listen to anyone else.”

Myungsoo considers this for a second, then shrugs. “I like it. It sounds nice.”

“It does, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah. He’s nice.”

Sungyeol is grinning as he steps out into the hall.

“Fuck,” Sungjong says when the door closes behind Sungyeol, and the crudity isn’t like him, but Sungyeol barely hears it. “No wonder you’re so in love with him; he’s everything our world isn’t.”

In love. Is that what this is? Sungyeol hadn’t thought of it in those terms before, mostly because he hasn’t heard those words applied to anything but the way Sungjong feels about Minha, so they aren’t very familiar to him. In love. Yeah. Maybe that’s what this is.

“I can’t even imagine what he was like when you first met him,” Sungjong is muttering as he walks swiftly down the hall. “If he’s like this now….”

“You like him, Sungjong?” Sungyeol has to ask even though he knows the answer.

“Of course I like him. How could anyone not like him?” Sungjong answers, testy, and Sungyeol feels a grin spreading across his face—that Sungjong likes Myungsoo, that Sungjong thinks _anyone_ would like Myungsoo. Sungyeol had thought so, but he’s a little bit prejudiced.

“Fuck, this is so much worse than I thought,” Sungjong says, and it’s then that Sungyeol realizes how tense Sungjong’s face is.

“What? What the fuck do you mean? What’s worse?”

Sungjong stops abruptly, spins to face him. “I thought it was just infatuation. Just you being swept away with someone who’s innocent and completely different than anyone you know. But you’re in _love_ with him. You teach him _math_.”

Sungyeol doesn’t see what that last has to do with anything. “He likes math.”

“He isn’t supposed to know that! And you—you’re like the most self-centered person on the planet! Why should you care whether he likes math or not?”

“Hey—“

“You don’t care what anyone else likes, except sometimes me. But you care that he likes it!”

“Why are you so—“

“Look. Hyung.” Sungjong’s voice is pitched very low, but his eyes are serious. “I was excited at the thought of you getting in touch with your humanity. I still am. I knew this was inside you, the ability to think about someone else, to take pleasure in them finding pleasure in something. I knew it. But hyung, you’re in love with that boy and he’s in love with you, and that would be a good thing—a wonderful thing—except that a boy like that isn’t going to be available for long.”

Sungyeol’s head is spinning ( _Myungsoo is in love with me?_ ) from too many emotions—from the giddy happiness of seeing Sungjong and Myungsoo together, from Sungjong’s mood swings (he’d been so happy and cheerful with Myungsoo, just a few minutes before), from the things Sungjong is saying that aren’t making any sense (from the thought of Myugnsoo being in love with him too). All he can think to say is, “Sungjong?”

Sungjong reaches out and grips his hand, so hard it hurts, but Sungyeol can’t drag his eyes from Sungjong’s. “A boy like that is going to get a permanent placement. _Soon_. And what are you going to do then, hyung? Your heart’s going to get broken, and his too. You won’t ever see him again.”

And suddenly Sungyeol feels nothing at all. “That won’t happen.” His voice sounds very hollow.

“Yes, hyung, it will! He’s handsome and sweet and adorable—you aren’t the only one who’s going to want to come home to that smile every night. And the thing is, someone else who wants to? Will be an administrator. And he or she will _get_ what they want. And then, hyung, what are you going to do?”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“For fuck’s sake, hyung, stop being so—“

Sungyeol jerks his hand out of Sungjong’s. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Hyung, you have to listen to me—“

“Goodnight, Sungjong. Tell Minha hi for me.”

And then Sungyeol’s striding away from him, back towards his room, long legs eating up the space between him and Myungsoo. He manages to keep from breaking out into a run, but only just barely.

Myungsoo grins up at him when he bursts back into the room. “That was fun,” he says. “I like him. Did he like me? Can we see him again?”

But Sungyeol doesn’t answer, just storms over till he can pull Myungsoo up out of his seat, and then he’s kissing him harder than he’s ever kissed him before. Myungsoo makes a startled sound into his mouth but kisses him back, and he just stares at Sungyeol when Sungyeol pulls back just long enough to say, voice fierce and harsh, “No one’s taking you away from me.”

 

 

 

But Sungyeol should have learned by now: Sungjong is always right.


	8. eight

It’s Ellin who tells him.

It’s a night when Myungsoo isn’t available, so Sungyeol doesn’t hurry back to his room immediately, lingering over dinner with Sungjong (Sungjong has been tight-faced lately, keeps trying to have conversations Sungyeol won’t let him start, but he’s still Sungyeol’s best friend and Sungyeol still wants to be with him when he can) before heading home. He’s always pleased to see Ellin, but the pleasure isn’t pure: it can’t be, not when it’s mixed up with disappointment and anger and something sharper and harsher that he can’t name, all of them inflating his chest because he won’t get to see Myungsoo. He thinks Ellin can tell, but she never says anything about it, just teases him and coaxes him to play games with her or convinces him to let her teach him how to dance (he’s very bad at it, and she laughs and laughs. He laughs, too, but even that isn’t the same as it is with Myungsoo). 

Sungyeol mentions something about this to Sungjong and Sungjong rolls his eyes, as he often does. “You should try to be happier when she’s with you, hyung. Just think how much it must mean to her that she gets this time with someone who treats her like a person. Even if she has to put up with your annoying self, she at least gets to be free for a little while. That’s a gift, hyung. You should give it to her freely, because that’s the only time gifts mean anything.”

Sungyeol is glad that he can give her that, sure, but not enough to overcome his restlessness when Myungsoo isn’t with him. He supposes he would care more—would try harder—if her very presence wasn’t a reminder of Myungsoo’s absence, if only he didn’t think _she’s here because Myungsoo can’t be_ when she’s with him. It isn’t fair to her, he knows, but he can’t bring himself to be the cheerful companion Sungjong seems to think he should be. It’s not that he broods, really, and he’s more lighthearted with her than he is with anyone who isn’t Myungsoo (he doesn’t have to pretend not to be miserable with Sungjong). He’d rather be with her than with anyone else but Myungsoo and Sungjong, and that should count for something.

But every time he walks through his door and she’s there, the pain of _not-Myungsoo_ shoots through him like a bullet and he has to fight to smile.

Usually she bounces up and starts chattering, teasing him into a better mood and dragging him into her games. She puts forth more effort than he does, and even though he knows that’s her job—to make patrons happy—it doesn’t seem fair, exactly. Maybe because he knows her name now. He’s beginning to think that really does make all the difference.

This night, though, she doesn’t leap up to greet him. She just turns her head very slowly to look at him and he sees that her face is very white, the skin looking a little too tight, and the sound of the door hissing closed behind him seems to match the sound of his heart dropping through his torso. 

“What?” he whispers, because it’s all that he can think to say.

“Sungyeol-ssi,” she says, standing and moving towards him, so much slower than she usually does. “Come sit down.”

“What—what did—is something wrong with Myungsoo? Is Myungsoo okay? What—?”

She takes his hands in hers, and he usually likes that feeling because her hands are soft and strong. “Please, Sungyeol-ssi, come sit down.”

But he yanks his hands back, suddenly not wanting anyone to touch him—not anyone, not anything soft—not until he knows. “Tell me! What’s wrong with Myungsoo?”

He hadn’t even realized his voice was rising until she takes a tiny step back; he’d been screaming at her. But the yelling seems to firm something inside her because he can see her set her jaw and then, determined and not the slightest bit hesitant, she grabs him by his shoulders and manhandles him over to sit down on the foot of the bed. He tries to fight her off, but it’s like panic has calcified his muscles; he can’t seem to move.

She stands in front of him, small but stern, and her voice is almost harsh in its firmness, but her eyes are kind. “Listen to me, Sungyeol-ssi. I am going to tell you this and you are not going to freak out, do you hear me? You’re going to want to, but you are _not_ going to react in any way that might draw attention. Do you understand?”

He barely even hears her; it feels like his ears have become an echo chamber. “What happened to Myungsoo? _What happened to him_?”

“Myungsoo is fine. He is fine,” she repeats, as though the words need to be built up to have any substance. Then her chin jerks for just a moment and she says, voice throaty, “He’s going to be permanently placed.”

The world is very, very still and very, very quiet for a long moment. And then everything is violent motion.

It’s a blur, really, a blur of pain (more acute, more pointed than he’d ever imagined could exist) and lashing out and maybe a crash of something breaking and then something slams into his side and he’s propelled sideways and then there’s a slam of a door and when he jerks to a stop he’s in his bathroom, staring at the closed door for a split second before he hurls himself at it.

Ellin’s voice sounds much, much further away than it possibly could with only a door between them. “You’re just going to stay in there till you finish your tantrum. If you destroy everything out here they’ll find out, and you can’t let them find out, so you just stay in there till you’re done.”

His hands reach out, looking for something to grasp, something to throw, something to destroy, but there isn’t anything, only towels, only soft things, nothing he can hurt. He hurls himself towards the cabinet, throwing open the door, to at least find some bottles to launch against the tiles, but it’s empty. There’s nothing he can find to unleash his anger on. There’s nothing.

There’s nothing.

Only the door. It won’t open, no matter how hard he hits it, no matter how hard he jerks at the handle, it won’t _open_. That doesn’t stop him from throwing himself at it, again and again, till it feels like his bones are being jarred loose from the muscles and ligaments holding them in place. He’s screaming something, though he can’t hear it now, not with the world swaddled in suffocating cotton; he only knows because he can feel the rawness of his throat. It’s too small of a room to even pace in, though his body is screaming out to do it. So he keeps at the door, hammering against it with the heels of his hands till they’re red and swollen and through it all, he can feel the rawness of his throat growing. Still, he can’t hear anything. There’s nothing.

Later, he finds himself on his knees. He’s on his knees, and his whole left side is throbbing with pain, and his hands are hot and pulsing rhythmically; it takes him some time staring at them to realize that each pump of blood from his heart and through his hands is sends a bolt of pain through him. He thinks maybe he fell to his knees because he thinks they hurt, or they would if he could feel through the other pain and locate it. He isn’t sure which feels worse: his breath scraping through his lungs or chafing against his throat. His head feels like it’s stuck in one of the clamps they use in the lab, screwing tighter and tighter and tighter and surely it’ll get so tight that it won’t be able to tighten anymore, but it never does, just keeps tightening and tightening and tightening.

The first noise he hears is the door swishing open on its almost-silent tracks. He doesn’t look up, but then there are soft hands against his cheeks and when he jerks away from them, he sees that they’re damp and that’s when he knows he’s crying. He doesn’t want those soft hands to touch him, doesn’t want anythinganythinganything in the world ( _but Myungsoo_ ). 

He feels warmth against him and it’s Ellin trying to wrap her little body around his and he doesn’t want her there, he doesn’t want her or anything or anyone or anything ( _but Myungsoo_ ) but he still lets his head fall to her shoulder and he weeps.

 

 

 

“What did he say? When they told him?”

It’s later, much later probably, and somehow Ellin had gotten him to his feet and out of the bathroom and into bed, and now they’re lying in the dark and she’s still holding him and he still doesn’t really want her to touch him but he’s too weary to push her away. It’s hard enough to find energy to speak the words, and they grate out through his throat like they’re shredding him. But he has to know. 

“He didn’t say anything.” Sungyeol is so used to her voice being bright and loud that he almost pulls away at how unfamiliar she sounds like this: subdued, quiet. “He didn’t say anything and his face didn’t change and he didn’t even look like he knew what the manager was talking about. She dismissed him and he just walked into our room and just stood there. And I thought he was going to stand there forever so I pulled him into bed—I thought he’d feel better if he could sleep with me—but he didn’t even cuddle like he always does. He just laid there and he didn’t move at all. Or say anything, no matter what I asked him. I don’t think he slept any—I don’t know, I feel asleep a lot later. And he hasn’t really said anything since then. He just gets up and does what he’s supposed to do and he doesn’t say anything to anybody. Not even when I hug him.”

Sungyeol thinks that later, when he can feel those words, they’ll hurt more than anything. But he doesn’t feel anything right now, like the tears drained him of every emotion. Maybe that’s what Myungsoo feels like. It’s better than pain. Maybe.

“He must be able to keep the patrons happy, though; he hasn’t been called to the managers since he found out. I wouldn’t think he’d be able to do that, but maybe he’s better at pretending than he looks.”

Sungyeol can’t think about Myungsoo with patrons right now ( _right now he’s with one right now_ ). 

“When he looked like that—so blank—I thought, ‘This must be what he looked like when they told him he was going to be a servicer.’”

Myungsoo still had calluses on his hands then, when they told him he was going to be a servicer. He had probably looked up at the clouds just before they called him in to tell him. Did he even know what a servicer _was_? All he’d have known was that he was going somewhere different, where he didn’t know anything. He must have been very scared.

The bed is too soft under Sungyeol’s back. The bed Myungsoo will sleep in ( _with someone else_ ) will be even softer.

“I won’t ever see him again.” He doesn’t know how he says those words when he hasn’t had that thought in his head. He hasn’t thought it. He hasn’t been able to think it yet. But there are the words. There they are.

Ellin releases him, sitting upright. “Yes, you will.”

Sungyeol turns his head very slowly to look up at her. What?

“It takes a little while for the paperwork to go through on things like this. It’ll be a couple of weeks before he—before he’s placed. And you already have him scheduled for next week. You’ll be able to see him at least once more. You will, Sungyeol-ssi.”

Sungyeol’s fingers twitch against the sheets. That should make him feel happy—later, maybe, it will: happier, at least. But right now he still doesn’t feel anything at all.

They sleep, maybe, or maybe they don’t. There doesn’t seem to be much difference between waking and sleeping right now. When morning comes and the lights switch on, Ellin pulls him upright and pads over to her bag, pulling out a small vial. He stares at his without seeing it as she unscrews the top.

“You’re a mess right now, Sungyeol-ssi. You can’t have anyone seeing that now can you?” Her voice is back to being more energetic, brisk, if not convincingly cheerful. She peels his clothes off him, and it’s not the first time a servicer has helped him out of his clothes, but it’s weird now because it has nothing to do with sex. They used to dress and undress him like this when he was still in the crèche. It’s almost funny.

She slathers the contents of the vial—a thick, clean-smelling cream—all over his left side and he notes as she does that bruises having spent the night rising on his skin, but even as she rubs the cream onto them, they start to fade. He’d wondered how none of the servicers ever have marks on them when they come to him, even though some of their patrons must leave them. Now he wonders if his work helps perfect things like this. Maybe he helps make these kinds of solutions often but just doesn’t know what they do because he only works on one part of them. 

“I cleaned up the vase you broke last night; you can always just say it was an accident. That’s why I put you in the bathroom and I’d taken everything breakable out of it—one vase you can say is an accident, but if you’d broken more than that, the your service cleaner would have noticed and you’d be reported. How would you explain that, Sungyeol-ssi? Aren’t you glad you have me to think of these things for you?”

Sungyeol knows he should be glad, that he should be grateful, so grateful, that he should thank her. But he just lets her rub the cream into his swollen hands and the swipe some under his eyes.

“There, now no one will even know that you’ve been crying.”

She helps him back into his clothes and puts the vial back in her bag and turns to look at him. She looks for a long time, and Sungyeol can’t tell if she’s studying him or waiting for him to say something, but after a moment she sighs and leans down to kiss his forehead. “I’m sorry, Sungyeol-ssi.”

He catches her hand as she turns to leave. “Tell Myungsoo—“ The words are barely croaks; his throat hasn’t recovered overnight. “Tell him—“

But there isn’t a thing Sungyeol can think to say. Ellin squeezes his hand. “Take care of yourself, okay, Sungyeol-ssi?”

And then she’s gone.

 

 

It only takes one look for Sungjong to figure it out. “Oh, hyung,” he breathes, eyes so warm, and Sungyeol knows that if they weren’t in the cafeteria Sungjong would try to put his arms around him. Sungyeol is glad they’re in the cafeteria.

Sungyeol doesn’t say anything, just keeps shoveling his rice into his mouth. He doesn’t want to eat—he has no appetite, and worse than that, he feels nauseous all the time. But eating is better than talking about this. 

Sungjong, for once, doesn’t say much. Sungyeol had thought he’d launch off into a lecture on what all this reveals about humanity or the system or something, but he doesn’t. He says a couple of completely irrelevant things about the food that morning and about needing a haircut and things like that, but he doesn’t expect Sungyeol to say anything in return. If Sungyeol could feel anything, he’d be grateful.

But Sungjong does pull him aside as they’re leaving the cafeteria, down the hallway towards the elevator. He grasps both of Sungyeol’s hands and shakes them. “Listen to me, hyung,” he says, voice low but serious. “You cannot act like this, do you hear me? When you’re in your room, you can switch off if you want. But you have to act like your regular self while you’re out here or someone is going to start paying attention to you and _that can’t happen_ , okay? Hyung, do you hear me?” That last snaps like a whip and jerks Sungyeol’s head up to actually look at him.

It still takes him a long time to remember how to answer. “I—yeah. Yeah, I hear you, Sungjong.”

“This isn’t a game, Sungyeol. You have to do this. I don’t care how hard it seems. You have to.”

The elevator dings open and Sungjong pushes him inside. It’s a nothing little box, just him and Sungjong, and Sungyeol kind of wishes he could stay here forever. He lets his head drop to Sungjong’s shoulder, and he feels Sungjong’s hands running through his hair. For just a second Sungyeol feels like he can breathe. 

Then the elevator door dings open and they step away from each other and Sungyeol has to go pretend.

 

 

He’s better at it than he’d ever have hoped. It’s like a setting inside him shifts, and he finds that he can do just what he’s done with his life counselor: be something he isn’t. Not one thing about him feels normal; if he didn’t know better he’d think that he’s changed on a cellular level, each atom that forms him different than it was before (before he found out, before he fell in love, before Myungsoo). On the inside he is a cry of pain in an empty place; on the outside he’s just as he always was.

If things were different, he thinks he’d enjoy this. Revel in it, even. He doesn’t know what it is about this pretending to be something he isn’t—power or satisfaction at competence or the smugness of a secret or just the fun of play—but he seems to be made to do it. It’s so easy, actually, plastic mask slapping into place, and no one at all notices the difference (well, maybe Sunggyu does. Sungyeol finds his tiny eyes watching him sometimes, narrowed till they almost disappear, but Sunggyu doesn’t say anything, doesn’t act any different than he usually does, so Sungyeol doesn’t worry about it). Even Sungjong tells him he’s doing well.

But Sungyeol feels no glow of pride. Sungyeol doesn’t feel much of anything. Not until the week passes and he opens his door and finds Myungsoo sitting not at his desk with his head bent over math, but straight-backed on the couch, staring at nothing. Sungyeol has sat just like that every time he’s in this room when he’s not sleeping. Staring at nothing. (There’s nothing to stare at.)

He looks over at Sungyeol when the door closes, turning his neck in a motion that looks painful. They just look at each other for a very long time.

 

 

 

Sungyeol had thought he’d snap, maybe throw Myungsoo onto the bed and be harsher and more desperate with him than he’s ever been before, try to push his way into Myungsoo’s body any way possible, maybe bite him the way he’d fantasized. Instead he and Myungsoo just stumble into each other’s arms and don’t say anything at all.

 

 

 

They don’t have sex. For the first time, Sungyeol isn’t even sure he _could_ have sex if he wanted to. They just lay pressed up as close to each other as they can, limbs tight in bonds trying to attain an immutability they’ll never find, their chests rising and falling together with each breath. Sungyeol thinks he can feel their hearts beating against each other in the exact same rhythm. They don’t sleep, because sleep would be a waste. They don’t say anything because there isn’t anything to say.

 

 

It’s dark and so past late that the world seems timeless when Sungyeol whispers against Myungsoo’s skin. “I love you, Myungsoo. I love you.”

If he’d thought about it, he’d thought maybe the words, words he’s never spoken before, would taste different in his mouth. But they don’t.

Myungsoo’s hand slides between their chests. Sungyeol thinks maybe Myungsoo can feel the drumming of their hearts, one on each side of his hand. “Is that what this is?” Myungsoo’s voice is rough, but not like it is during sex. Like he hasn’t said anything in a very long time. 

“I think that’s what it is.”

Sungyeol thinks about his heart, beating against Myungsoo’s hand. 

“It hurts,” Myungsoo says.

“I know,” Sungyeol says.

 

 

 

(It’s in the dark, hearts beating together, that Sungyeol feels the idea dawning. But he doesn’t think about it, pushing it aside. He won’t let even the idea intrude into this. Nothing else can come here. Nothing else.)

 

 

 

 

The light comes and they separate. Sungyeol knows he hadn’t slept any, and yet it feels like he had a dream that his skin and Myungsoo’s grew together and they became one organism, a new thing that has never existed before. 

But he didn’t have that dream. 

They don’t touch again, not even a goodbye kiss, but they stand and look at each other again for a long, long time.

When Myungsoo turns, Sungyeol has to close his eyes. But he hears the door open and then close, and when he opens his eyes, Myungsoo is gone.


	9. nine

For a while, there isn’t anything.

There’s work, which Sungyeol somehow manages to keep up with it well enough that the only comments he gets on his performance are a few sarcastic remarks from Sunggyu about his energy level. There’s meals with Sungjong, but even those don’t cheer him, not at all, and Sungjong either talks about his work without expecting Sungyeol to even listen or they sit in silence. And then Sungyeol goes back to his room and lies on his bed and stares at nothing. He’s never sure the next morning whether he slept or not; it seems irrelevant. It isn’t like anything matters.

In the mornings, it’s the sound of the alarm that drags Sungyeol upright, a mechanical movement that’s followed by plodding to the shower, not bothering to turn the water warm, drying off and pulling on clothes and moving out to eat breakfast, then to work. He moves without even telling himself to move, barely recognizing that he has, and his brain switches on only when he’s in the lab bent over a beaker or a test tube or paperwork. 

Probably his subdued temperament would have warranted a discussion with his life coach, but just at that time Sungyeol develops what Sungjong calls a cold, sniffling and sometimes sneezing or coughing. The nurse in the infirmary is baffled: none of her pills and poultices work, Sungyeol keeps sniffling, and even a boost in Vitamin C doesn’t help anything. It’s nothing extreme, but it’s enough to explain in his file why he’s acting the way he is. 

Sungyeol doesn’t care; the symptoms that would normally be an annoyance barely register. He doesn’t think about them, doesn’t think about anything (not even Myungsoo with someone else somewhere in a big apartment with a bed that’s too soft). There’s work and meals and exercise regimen and what feels like fleeting glimpses of Sungjong’s very white face and nothing else.

 

 

 

And once a week, Ellin comes.

If Sungyeol had been able to think about her coming, he would have been irritated, assuming that she would try to cheer him up or yell at him or something. But she never says anything when he stumbles in after dinner, just watches him as he falls onto the bed, not even bothering to change his clothes. 

Ellin finds other ways to amuse herself. She plays games on his pad, mostly, takes naps curled up beside him, drinks his soju. She dances, too, though not the bright happy dances she used to bounce to; instead she chooses moves slow and full of yearning and moves her body in ways he hasn’t ever seen anyone move before—not that he watches. He’d always enjoyed watching Ellin dance because she seems to enjoy it so much, to take pleasure in the movement, and though he doesn’t have anything to compare it with, he thinks she must be good at it. Sungjong says that Before, people danced to music, but Sungyeol’s never heard music; he didn’t even know what dancing was the first time Ellin did it. He had to get Sungjong to explain it to him later. Sungjong had been excited, cheeks flushed, and of course said something about art and essential humanity. “She must hear music in her head.”

The music must have changed now, and if Sungyeol could think about anything at all, he’d wonder if it changes only when she’s around him or whether it’s changed altogether for her. But Sungyeol doesn’t think about anything, not even the feel of her hip pressed against his shoulder when she pushes him over on the bed so she can sit next to him while she plays with his pad. Not even the way she pats his head before she leaves.

 

 

 

It’s one morning after she leaves that the idea coalesces again, piecing itself together in the forefront of his mind without him putting any effort into it. It’s a slow process, the idea being born, the details of it sharpening and clarifying over the hours, until there it is, shining and bright hanging in the air in front of him, the first thing he’s actually _seen_ since he opened his eyes and Myungsoo was gone.

It’s always his rest day the day after his servicer visit, and Sungyeol nearly goes crazy with waiting. Energy animates his body again, an energy that had seemed to have melted away forever, but now it’s back, harsher and more intense, and he grabs a math textbook of Myungsoo’s and starts scribbling equations in the margins, working furiously for just the right compound. The details will have to be worked out later, when he’s got more information, and the thought of how long he’ll have to wait makes him want to howl and shriek and sometimes he has to bounce off the bed, tossing aside his book and pen and running into the bathroom, twitching until the door closes and he can let out a scream before he throws the door back open and hurls himself back at his book. 

He works through the night, vibrating with feverish energy. He knows everything he develops here will have to be scrapped when he gets the data he needs later, but he can’t stop himself from keeping at it anyway. When the lights come on and his alarm goes off, he raises a stiff neck and gritty eyes and blinks at the world he’s been oblivious to for several weeks. It seems brighter than he remembered.

Sungjong’s eyes go wide when he looks up from his breakfast and sees Sungyeol hurrying towards his table.

“Hyung. Hyung—are you sick?”

Sungyeol doesn’t even bother to wonder why Sungjong is asking him that with his face so taut, just throws himself down in his chair and leans across his meal tray. “Sungjong. _Sungjong_.”

“Hyung, really, do you need to go to the infirmary? Your eyes are all glassy and—“

“Sungjong. I’m going to ask you to do something for me soon. Something that could get you in trouble. Will you do it?”

Sungyeol is so tense with his own purpose that he doesn’t even notice the way Sungjong’s eyes sharp and his face seems to fall at the same time. He doesn’t hear that Sungjong’s voice, an undertone too intense to be a whisper, is as penetrating as his own. “Hyung, what are you planning?”

Sungyeol dismisses this with a wave of his hand. “I can’t tell you yet. Will you do it?”

Sungjong’s eyes are steely now. “It depends on what it is, hyung. I’m not going to help you destroy yourself. Or him.”

Sungyeol disregards this, reaching for his chopsticks. When the time comes, Sungjong will do what Sungyeol asks of him. Sungjong is his friend. 

Sungyeol throws himself on his food, gulping it down as fast as he can where for the past few weeks he’s eaten mechanically. It’s not so much that his appetite has returned as it is that he knows he’s going to need energy in order to do his best work. And this will be the best work he ever does.

 

 

He fools around a little with his idea in the lab, but there isn’t so much he can actually accomplish until he talks to Ellin, and so there’s nothing he can really do but wait. It feels like every cell of his body is straining with waiting, his fingers twitching at strange times, his knee bouncing when he should be relaxed. Again, he can’t remember in the mornings whether he slept the night before, but it’s different now, his nights a haze of plans and what ifs and scenarios that might be dreams or nightmares or merely his waking mind in overdrive. 

When his servicer visit _finally_ comes, he skips dinner—something he never does—and so it’s him waiting for Ellin this time instead of the other way around. She blinks when she opens the door and sees him, and then her eyes go narrow, ‘what are you up to?’ written all over her face.

Sungyeol hurls himself forward, catching her shoulders in his hands, fingers biting just a bit too hard into her skin. “Ellin—Ellin, do you know who took Myungsoo? Do you know who he is? Or—or she?”

She gives him a long, hard look, then methodically peels his fingers off her shoulders. He flushes, but maybe it’s more in anticipation than guilt. He follows her like an eager child as she walks over to the couch and sits down.

“Ellin? Do you know? Can you find out?”

“I know,” she says, and there are dazzling lights exploding inside Sungyeol because this is the first puzzle piece, falling into place. _Yes_.

“Well? Tell me who it is!”

“Sungyeol, you cannot go find him. You can’t. You’ll get in trouble and you’ll make things harder for Myungsoo. I’m not going to let you do that.”

Sungyeol gapes at her, then laughs, a short, barking sound. “I’m not going to go find him. What do you think, I’m going to go beat him up?”

The line of her lips is not amused. “Why else do you want to know who he is?”

He can barely get the words out; they seem too large and important and unwieldy. “I’ve got—I’ve got a plan. But I need you to help me.”

She snorts, but her eyes are cautious. “There’s no plan that wouldn’t end in you both being in trouble.”

“Yes, there is! This is a perfect plan! I’ll get Myungsoo back and no one will ever know! Please, Ellin, I’m not asking you to do anything except to tell me who he is. You definitely won’t get in trouble, I promise.”

“I’m not telling you anything unless you tell me what this ‘perfect’ plan is first.”

 

 

 

After he’s done telling her, she stares at him. For a long time, in silence. And when she finally speaks, it’s like her voice can’t decide whether it wants to laugh forever or scream at him in anger. “You can’t be serious.”

Sungyeol opens his mouth to insist that he very much is, but then she’s leaping to her feet, her eyes flashing. 

“Ow!”

That had to have hurt her hand, punching him that hard in the arm, but she doesn’t seem to feel it. “I knew you were stupid from the first time we met, but I had no idea just how—how could your mind even come _up_ with something like—this is the worst thing I’ve ever heard of anyone doing I don’t—YA SUNGYEOL HOW ARE YOU SO STUPID?”

To an outside observer, the rest of the night might appear humorous: her pacing furiously through the room, throwing her arms around as she rants him, him following her and insisting over and over that this plan will _work_. It’s late when she finally collapses onto his bed and goes silent, staring at the ceiling while Sungyeol stands above her, shifting from foot to foot. Her voice is very flat when she speaks.

“I suppose we don’t have anything to lose.”

And Sungyeol starts to hope.

 

 

 

She makes it very clear that if anything goes wrong and Myungsoo gets in trouble, she _will_ report Sungyeol and make sure he’s fully punished. Sungyeol agrees readily; he doesn’t believe for a second that Myungsoo will get in trouble, but if he ever were to, of course Sungyeol should be reported. This is all for Myungsoo, after all.

“You know who he is?” Sungyeol can’t remember the last time he felt eager like this, but he’s sure it was when he was waiting for Myungsoo.

“Yes. Myungsoo told me. It’s one of his regular clients.”

“A man?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know him?”

“No. He only asks for boys; I’ve never met him, but I’ve heard the boys talk about him.”

Sungyeol doesn’t want to think about this, not at all, but he finds he can’t keep himself from asking. “Is he—what do the others say about him?”

Her eyes are knowing but not soft. “He’s not one of the bad ones, if that’s what you’re asking. He’s probably pretty good to Myungsoo.”

Sungyeol doesn’t care if this fucker is ‘pretty good’ to Myungsoo or not. No one can be good to Myungsoo like he himself can, and all he’d wanted to know was that the man doesn’t hurt him. 

“He’s an administrator.”

“Of course. Pretty high up, I think, in the department of education.”

“Give me his name.”

He can’t risk writing this down, so he has her repeat it a few times until he knows he’ll never forget it—never forget the name of the man who’s taken Myungsoo away from him. 

And that was all he needed to know from Ellin, just that name. Just that name makes this possibility real, means that the day after tomorrow when he sees Sungjong, he can ask him for what he needs. And of course Sungjong will say yes.

Sungyeol is so full of energy that he considers having sex with Ellin just to get rid of some of it, but of course he doesn’t. He doesn’t want anyone but Myungsoo. And he’s going to get Myungsoo back. He _is_.

When morning comes and it’s time for Ellin to leave, she stands over him and grabs his face between her hands and her eyes are hard as her voice when she speaks. “Don’t forget for a minute what I said. If this hurts Myungsoo _at all_ , I will report you. And you will disappear. Do you understand?”

Sungyeol bounces up, shaking her hands off of his face and throwing his arms around her to spin her around the room. “You’re a great friend, Ellin. We’re going to get him back!”

He doesn’t notice the look she gives him over her shoulder as she leaves, but even if he had, the fear there wouldn’t have deflated him at all.

 

 

 

Next work day, Sungjong watches Sungyeol’s shining eyes with a face full of caution. He doesn’t seem at all surprised when Sungyeol leans across his breakfast to say, “Can I come visit you and Minha tonight, Sungjong?”

“You can visit, hyung, but you might not get what you want.”

The words are meant to be ominous but they don’t touch Sungyeol. He probably shouldn’t visit Sungjong in his room now, not when Sungjong visited Sungyeol’s only a few weeks back. Their unusually close friendship is closely monitored, but their life counselors don’t do much but cluck their tongues when they very occasionally visit each other. If they made a habit of it, Sungyeol knows they would put a stop to it, but the counselors and administration usually leave Sungjong alone as long as nothing interferes with his work. Sungyeol knows he can only stay for an hour or so or else he’ll be called into a meeting tomorrow, but an hour or so is more than enough time. He won’t need half that much.

He has to keep himself from bouncing in place in front of Sungjong’s door as he waits for it to be answered; there are cameras in the halls and happy bouncing would probably be noticed. Sungjong says there used to be cameras in every room, including the bathroom, but they aren’t needed so much anymore because everyone knows their place now, so they’re only in the common spaces and more for show than anything. Still, Sungyeol doesn’t want to risk it.

It’s Minha who opens the door. She’s a pretty girl, with a distinct face and long, beautiful hair, tall for a girl—almost as tall as Sungjong. Sungyeol doesn’t spend much time with her because someone would notice, but he’s always liked her: she’s quiet but with a sense of humor he can appreciate. Besides, she makes Sungjong happy, so Sungyeol doesn’t care much about anything else.

She smiles at him softly as she gestures him inside, but as soon as the door is closed, her eyes go narrow and she plants her fists on her hips.

“I’m very upset with you, Sungyeol-ssi.”

Sungyeol laughs in surprise. “What?”

“You’re making Sungjong worry all the time! All he does is worry about you! It’s affecting his health—look at him!”

Sungyeol follows the accusatory line of Minha’s arm to where she’s pointing at Sungjong, who is rising off the couch. “Minha, I’ve told you to stop worrying about this,” he says, exasperated. 

“Are you really saying that to me, Sungjong? So you can worry about your friend but I can’t worry about _you_? I’ll worry if I want to worry! And I’ll keep doing it till you look like yourself again!”

Sungyeol has never seen Minha like this, hadn’t even known she could ever be like this. But he can’t think much about it, because he’s looking at Sungjong, and yes, maybe Minha’s right. Sungjong looks a little thinner than usual, his face paler, and the smears of darkness under his eyes are bigger than Sungyeol has seen them before. 

Sungyeol shoves Sungjong’s shoulder. “Ya! Why are you looking like that? There’s nothing to worry about at all, so stop looking so bad!”

Despite their bickering, Sungjong’s fingers have intertwined with Minha’s and they’re standing so close together it makes Sungyeol ache for Myungsoo. But he shoves the feeling away when Sungjong laughs. It isn’t a happy laugh, though.

“Oh, yes, there’s nothing to worry about. Just you walking around like a zombie for weeks and now coming up with some kamikaze plan that’ll probably get all of us disappeared. Nothing to worry about at all!”

Sungyeol doesn’t understand Sungjong’s references, but he gets the gist. “I’m telling you—there’s nothing to worry about! It’s a great plan! Come listen!”

He drags Sungjong—and by extension, Minha—over to the couch and flops down in the armchair across from them. “Okay, listen.”

He hadn’t gone into very much detail with Ellin, just telling her the basics because it wasn’t like she’d understand everything anyway. But this is Sungjong, with a mind even sharper than Sungyeol’s own, so he gives him the full rundown, every bit of the plan he’s developed. The words tumble out in his eagerness, and he’s so caught up in the telling that he hasn’t even bothered to pay attention to how Sungjong is reacting to all of this.

“So all I need from you is to help me get a look at his medical file and then to find out where his apartment is, the schematics of the ventilation system, and access to it—just once, for a few minutes. I’m sure you can hack it. Can’t you?”

He finishes with a flourish, leaning forward eagerly, and it’s only now that he sees that Sungjong’s face is completely disbelieving and that Minha’s is a perfect reflection of it. They’re both staring at him in something close to horror, and Sungyeol feels a slight rumble low in his belly, a possibility he hadn’t let himself consider before: that Sungjong might refuse him.

It’s very quiet for a long moment and then Minha jumps to her feet. “No, Sungyeol— _NO_! You are not going to get Sungjong involved in this! No!”

Sungjong doesn’t seem to have heard her; he’s risen to his feet and now he grabs Sungyeol by the shoulders very much as Sungyeol had Ellin, only he shoves Sungyeol into the wall behind him. “You’re crazy.” Sungjong’s grip is so tight it’s painful, but his voice is very even. “Crazy with grief. That happens, of course, of course it does. I’ve just never seen it before. But that’s what’s going on here. It’s understandable. You’ve lost the person you love. Men have started wars over less. I understand that you’re fueling your grief into something that seems constructive; it’s a basic coping technique. Keep planning, if you want. It’s given you something new to focus on instead of your own pain, and it’s a step forward. Sooner or later you’ll find other things to distract you. Just—don’t talk about this to anyone. Don’t even talk about it to Ellin anymore, do you understand? She doesn’t need to be dragged into this, I’m sure she’s already worrying herself sick. Just keep doing what you’re doing and don’t talk about it.”

Sungjong has started to steer Sungyeol towards the door, Sungyeol almost tripping over his own feet as he tries to get his shoulders free, but Sungjong’s grip is too strong. “No—Sungjong, it’s a good plan, it’ll _work_ , just _think_ about it, please—think about Myungsoo all alone with someone who doesn’t love him and—“

“It’s time for you to go back to your room. Thank you for visiting. I’ll see you at breakfast tomorrow.”

“Sungjong—“

The door slides open and Sungyeol finally wrenches his shoulders free. 

“Goodnight, Sungyeol. Sleep well.”

“I thought you were my _friend_.”

The words come out in a hiss, fueled by a new feeling steaming inside Sungyeol’s chest (he’ll never know that that feeling is betrayal. He doesn’t have the language for something like that. All he knows is that it hurts more than anything he’s ever known. Except for Myungsoo being taken from him). Sungjong blinks, his arms going slack by his sides, his face blank. Sungyeol glares at him, fury fueled by that new emotion, and they are caught in something unbreakable.

Minha, though, gasps. “How dare you, Sungyeol?” she hisses back, and then she shoves him out into the hall. Sungyeol watches the door close on Sungjong’s still face. 

 

 

 

Sungjong is, Sungyeol knows now that he has the word for it, the only person besides Myungsoo that he has ever loved. He is also, Sungyeol discovers, a person that Sungyeol cannot hate. 

Oh, he tries to hate him. He’s furious with him, a kind of gnawing, biting, acid anger that he’s only ever felt towards the person who took Myungsoo away from him. But Sungyeol knows what hate is now, and he knows that that isn’t what he’s feeling towards Sungjong. Sungjong is too important to him—too much a part of him—to hate him. He had thought, before all of this, that hatred was just very intense anger. Now he knows that the distinction he’d never realized existed is important, and that it hurts more to be this kind of angry with someone you love than with someone you hate.

He and Sungjong can’t stop spending time together, of course, though Sungyeol thinks at the moment that he’d rather not see Sungjong ever again and one look at Sungjong the next day at breakfast tells him Sungjong feels the same way. Sungjong’s anger has always been icy as his contempt, the two very nearly the same thing, and the flip of his hair and the set of his shoulders tell Sungyeol that he’s as furious with Sungyeol as Sungyeol is with him.

But they have to sit together, have to make brittle small talk that neither of them even listens to, have to spend time together so that they aren’t noticed. They even smile at each other, and Sungyeol hadn’t realized until now that it isn’t the curve of the mouth or the flash of the teeth that makes a smile. It’s something else, something neither of them show towards each other anymore. 

Sungjong’s anger freezes for several days, clashing up against the fiery fury burning in Sungyeol’s chest, until finally one day Sungjong comes to lunch, sits down across from Sungyeol, unfolds his napkin in that precise, elegant way of his and says, “It isn’t even a good plan anyway. It solves things for the moment, but if he gets permanently placed again, you’ll have to do it again, and someone will definitely notice.”

Sungyeol has considered this, of course he’s considered this. But he’s not going to think about that. He’ll have Myungsoo back. He won’t think about him being taken away again.

“At least I’ll have him for a while. At least he’ll be free for a while.”

Sungjong doesn’t say anything, just purses his lips and they fall into silence.

That night at dinner, Sungjong takes a careful bite of his meal, wipes his mouth on his napkin and says, “I am refusing you because I am your friend.”

Sungyeol’s incredulous eyes fly up to Sungjong’s face, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to; his scoffing is apparent on his face.

“I am protecting you by not allowing you to do this. I will not see you destroy yourself.”

Then Sungjong takes another bite, like he hadn’t said anything at all. Sungyeol’s anger burns brighter.

It’s two days later, dinner this time, when Sungyeol rises from the table with his tray to head back to his room. “Without him, there’s nothing left of me to protect.”

The words are stiff even in his mouth and he doesn’t look back at Sungjong to see how he took them. He doesn’t get his answer until the next night at dinner, the breakfast and lunch in between full of nothing talk. This time it’s Sungjong who delivers his response as he rises to leave.

“I am your friend, but have you considered that you’re mine? There may be nothing left of you without him, but I still have her. Would a friend ask me for this?”

These words only leave Sungyeol angrier, but he’s self-aware enough to know that that’s because he hears truth in them. That truth wriggles around in his mind, a voice like Ellin’s that tells him that he’s selfish. Sungyeol hasn’t thought much about selfishness before, but now he compares it to love. He loves Myungsoo, and so he likes when Myungsoo is happy, doing his math problems. He loves Myungsoo, and so the thought of someone hurting him makes his heart ache. He loves Myungsoo, and so he wants him to be safe. 

He loves Sungjong, so he should want Sungjong to be happy and not hurt and safe. But maybe he loves Myungsoo _more_ , and maybe that means Myungsoo being those things is more important than Sungjong. But that seems wrong, a thought that leaves a sick aftertaste. He wants _both_ of them to be happy and not hurt and safe. And Ellin and Minha and Woohyun, too. And even Niel and Sunggyu. And his life counselor and all the servicers who have visited him and everyone, except for the administrator who hit Myungsoo and the person who wanted a little kid and was going to get Myungsoo instead and all the people who’ve hurt Myungsoo and Ellin and Minha and Woohyun and the other servicers. And the man who took Myungsoo from him. 

But they can’t all be happy and not hurt and safe, can they? Sungyeol really can’t think of a way for Myungsoo to be those things without him following through with his plan, and his plan requires Sungjong. And Sungjong is his friend who wants to keep himself safe for Minha because he loves her. Sungyeol’s mind churns around and around and he can’t see a way forward, can’t think of a single way to keep everyone happy and not hurt and safe. But with every churn, his anger dies down just a little until finally he isn’t angry at all. 

He tries to think of what to say to Sungjong, to make Sungjong not be this way with him anymore. He wants Sungjong to be the way they always were. But he doesn’t know how to get them back to that place and this he doesn’t have a plan for. All he knows is that he has to try.

But he doesn’t have to, because the next day at breakfast Sungjong sits down at the table and casually flips his hair out of his eyes.

“I will not do this for you. I can’t risk it—I have Minha to think of, and I can’t put myself in danger like that, I can’t do that to her. I won’t.”

Sungjong’s voice is careless, like he’s talking about nothing at all. But Sungyeol feels something rising slowly inside him. “Sungjong….”

“I have obtained a book about hacking. It is in my bag. There is no need for me to be careful of it, because I would never suspect that anyone would steal anything from my bag, because no one steals in our world. So I am not going to watch my bag very carefully. Why should I?”

“Sungjong,” Sungyeol says, almost choking on the words. “Sungjong, I love you.”

Sungjong takes a cool bite of his breakfast.

 

 

 

Sungyeol steals the book, and Sungyeol starts to work.


	10. ten

It’s easier and harder, working. He’s doing something now, has something to focus on instead of thinking or not-thinking of Myungsoo. He’s out of bed in the morning before his alarm even stops dinging, and there is always some aspect of the plan to focus on, to perfect or just run through again. “We’re all trained to work,” Sungjong always says. “Work and nothing else.” Sungjong always sounds bitter when he says it, but Sungyeol is very good at working.

But it’s agonizing, too, how the work never seems to be done, how much _time_ it’s taking. The hacking book is exhaustive, but it’s so frustrating to have to start with the basics when Sungyeol knows that the answers he really wants are in the very back of the book. He’s so tempted to skip ahead, to try to figure things out without doing all the fundamental work first, but he’s also determined to do this right, to make sure that nothing goes wrong. He can’t risk Myungsoo getting in trouble.

The chemistry is even worse. Sungyeol knows exactly what he needs to do, had worked out the basics of the formula in the first few days after he came up with the plan, but he can’t complete it until he gets access to Myungsoo’s patron’s medical records, which depend on the hacking. Nor can he just walk into the lab and pull down the ingredients he needs and start mixing them up in front of the others. He has to gather them on the sly, always ensuring that the missing ingredients won’t show up in one of the audits. He sneaks bases into his drawer (no one will check it unless they notice things have gone missing, Sungjong reluctantly tells him, because no one steals anything in this world) then covers by reporting a spill that never happened. He dumps a few liquids he won’t need down the sink when everyone’s back is turned, slides a test tube into his drawer, then files a report that he had mixed a solution wrong and had to discard the results. 

He tries to spread these incidents out over time, but he’s so impatient that he ends up drawing attention to himself, Sunggyu giving him sidelong suspicious glances, and then he’s called into his life counselor’s office. He sniffles pitifully under her sharp gaze and says that the nurse’s pills aren’t helping anything and his mind is clouded and it’s so very embarrassing, how often he’s making mistakes at work he knows he’s good at. His life counselor nods in brisk satisfaction, sends him back to the infirmary, and his Vitamin C intake is boosted for the foreseeable future. Sungyeol is giddy at dinner that night, annoying Sungjong with his basking in his own skill. “I lie right to her face and she doesn’t suspect a thing! I can get away with anything, Sungjong!”

Sungjong is not impressed. “She doesn’t suspect anything because probably no one’s ever lied to her before. Why would she think you’re starting now when everyone knows how forbidden lying is?”

This cynicism doesn’t touch Sungyeol’s happiness at all. “I think I’m just really good at—what is that called? When you make people think you’re something you aren’t?”

“Hypocrisy?” Sungjong suggests dryly. “Manipulation?”

“No, that’s not right. I remember you told me about it once. You said it had something to do with art?”

Sungjong says, as always long-suffering, “Acting, hyung.”

“Acting! That’s it! I’m really good at acting!”

But even with this triumph, sometimes Sungyeol thinks he’s going to crack up under the pressure of how long this is all taking. He saw someone crack up once, another professional. He can’t remember what department the man was in, but he remembers him being dragged away while screaming something unintelligible about boxes that were too small. Everyone had stared and stared; none of them had ever seen anything like that before, and Sungyeol had sought out Sungjong. They were only students then, but Sungyeol had already figured out that Sungjong knew far more about the world they lived in than he rightfully should. When Sungyeol asked where the man was being taken, Sungjong had looked somber. “I don’t know, hyung. I really don’t. But I don’t imagine it’s a good place, do you?”

Sungyeol hasn’t thought about that man much, the fear in his eyes, how he struggled to break free of the arms that held him. But he finds the man keeps popping into his head now, and for the first time, Sungyeol thinks he understands him. It’s so much to deal with, the planning and the working and most of all the waiting (and the not-having Myungsoo, and the knowing he’s with someone else, and the picturing of his scared face that first time they met), that Sungyeol sometimes feels as though he’s going to burst right apart with the force of it. 

“Maybe you should listen to yourself, then, hyung,” Sungjong says over a game of chess. “No good ever comes from ignoring your internal warning system. This is a very, very bad idea.”

“I’m not giving up, Sungjong,” Sungyeol snaps, and Sungjong drops the subject. Sungyeol knows he’s still worried: his pale, beautiful face is still taut and there are shadows ringing his eyes. But there’s nothing Sungyeol can do about that except give up, and that’s not going to happen. Not while Myungsoo is still out there.

“I should have told him I would find a way to bring him back,” Sungyeol says to Ellin one night, when they’re lying side-by-side on his bed, staring at the ceiling and talking. “I wish he knew I won’t give up.”

“It’s better this way,” Ellin disagrees. “This way he won’t be hurt if it doesn’t work out.”

Sungyeol doesn’t speak to her for the rest of the night and after that she learns not to mention the possibility of failure.

 

 

Finally, finally, finally, Sungyeol is ready to hack. It only takes a night or two to get the medical records and cover his trail. He can’t keep them on his computer, though—if someone looked in his drawer, he could always say that he had just shoved supplies in there because he was too lazy to clean up, and he’d pretty much be believed. But having someone else’s medical files on his computer would result in disappearing. There’s almost no chance anyone would ever find them there, but even that is a chance Sungyeol isn’t willing to take. So he has to hack back in night after night till he’s memorized the information he needs to know. He avoids looking at the man’s picture as much as he can. It’s a handsome face, and not a cruel one even if it doesn’t look kind either. He’s not as old as Sungyeol—irrationally, maybe—had expected, maybe late thirties. He looks very…competent. Sungyeol ignores the picture and focuses on the information he needs until he feels like the data is tattooed into his brain.

And then it’s to the lab, completing the formula, and starting to mix.

 

 

“Are you sure that this will only affect Myungsoo’s patron?” Sungjong asks again. “You could hurt Myungsoo on accident.”

Sungyeol is tired and cranky from staying up late poring over the patron’s DNA; he doesn’t want to hear this from Sungjong right now. “The whole _point_ is that it targets him and him only. Why do you think I’ve been killing myself over his DNA? It won’t have any effect on Myungsoo. Do you think I’m that bad at my job? Do you think I’m risking Myungsoo for kicks?”

Sungjong sighs, massages his temple. “No, hyung. I know you’re good at this. I just can’t help but worry.”

Sungyeol doesn’t worry, though. He doesn’t have time. Every bit of his energy is trained on making this happen. On getting Myungsoo back.

 

 

 

Sungyeol works and he waits and he works some more.

 

 

 

“Tomorrow,” Sungyeol says, setting his tray down with a click. “Tomorrow it will be ready, and tomorrow night I’ll do it.”

He thinks he should sound elated, giddy or even jumpy, but somehow he’s just tired. Tired and grimly, determinedly ready. He’s gone over and over the plan, over and over the formula: he’s ready. 

Sungjong doesn’t say anything or even raise his head, but his chopsticks still in his hand. Sungyeol takes his seat and starts to eat, though he can’t decipher the taste of the food. He feels the graininess of the rice, though, the threads of the meat, each texture nearly overwhelming. The cafeteria is full of the click of chopsticks against tin trays against the backdrop hum of low and unimportant conversation. 

After a while, Sungjong puts his chopsticks down and raises his head. “Hyung,” he says. “I need to ask you to consider something. I should have asked you about it a long time ago, but I’ve been trying not to criticize you too much.”

Sungyeol lets out a short, incredulous laugh. “Are you serious right now? Sungjong, you’ve done nothing _but_ criticize the whole plan from the beginning.”

“And I’m right. I’d do it again. But I meant…I meant I didn’t want to hurt you. But I think this is something you need to think about.”

“If it’s about the fact that this is only a temporary solution, can we please not get into that again? I _know_ , Sungjong.”

“It’s not about that. But that’s still true. Say this works. Myungsoo is sent back to the servicer pool and you get to see him once a week—or once a month, or whenever he’s free. And I would be happy for you, hyung, getting to see him again. But for how long? He’ll be permanently placed again, sooner or later, hyung. And what are you going to do then? You can’t go through with this stupid plan again—someone will _definitely_ notice if another of Myungsoo’s patrons drops dead suddenly and without warning. And then they’ll investigate, and they _will_ figure out that it’s you. Myungsoo might— _might_ —be able to escape from punishment if you’re good enough at convince them he didn’t know about the plan. But you, hyung, will disappear.” 

Sungyeol can’t look at Sungjong’s face when he’s like this. “I’m not going to go through with the plan again, Sungjong. This is a one-time thing. I’m not that stupid.”

“So what’s the point, Sungyeol? You had him with you and you loved him. You still love him. That was beautiful and I’m glad you had that and it hurts me that it was taken from you. But just having him back for a few weeks, maybe a few months if you’re lucky? Won’t it just hurt even more when he’s taken away again?”

“It will be worth it.” Sungyeol knows he sounds almost petulant in his stubbornness, but he doesn’t care. Anything is worth it, if it means Myungsoo being back with him. Even if it’s just one night.

Sungjong sighs, a long, exhausted sound, then shakes his head. “That isn’t what I needed to say to you, hyung.”

The last thing Sungyeol wants is to listen to any other criticism Sungjong has to offer. What he really wants is to go back to his room early and get a complete night’s rest for once. He won’t be getting much sleep tomorrow night.

But he still feels guilty over what he said to Sungjong, over what he asked of him. He’s apologized, or tried to. Sungjong had smiled a tired smile and said, “Hyung, you’re really, really bad at apologizing. Why am I not surprised?” but they’ve at least been talking again. And Sungjong’s book has made all this possible. He isn’t going to walk away from Sungjong now. He couldn’t.

That doesn’t mean he’ll be gracious about Sungjong’s nagging, though. “For fuck’s sake, Sungjong, what is it?”

Sungjong looks away, squares his shoulders, meets Sungyeol’s eyes again. “Have you considered that maybe Myungsoo doesn’t want to be put back in the servicer pool?”

Sungyeol hadn’t thought he’d ever be as mad at Sungjong again, but right now he can feel that familiar acid-anger bubbling inside of him. “What the fuck are you—“

“Hyung.” Sungjong’s voice is harsh and warning and cuts Sungyeol off completely. “Servicers _dream_ of permanent placement with someone halfway decent. When I asked for Minha, we were already—“ Sungjong’s cheeks flush, and it’s the first time Sungyeol has ever seen that. If he weren’t hovering on the edge of anger, he’d find it hilarious, endearing. “But she said even if we hadn’t really known each other, she would have been excited to be with me because I’m nice to the servicers. Do you think they all _like_ sleeping with whoever reserves them? Some of them probably do, of course, would have chosen this life in another world where they actually could choose. But most people aren’t wired like that, hyung. And Myungsoo definitely isn’t.”

Sungyeol feels that he’s going to tumble over the side of a cliff into undiluted anger at any moment. “Don’t you dare, Sungjong, don’t you imply—“

“He loves you, hyung. I know he does. If he could be with you permanently, of course he would be, of course that would be the dream of his life, just like it is for yours. But he isn’t the kind of person who wants to be with so many different people. He might say it’s worth it to do it in order to be with you some of the time—that wouldn’t surprise me. But you haven’t asked him. You don’t know for sure. And it might be better for him long-term if he stays with this person. Because, hyung, what if next time he’s placed with someone who _isn’t_ good to him?”

Sungyeol will not listen to this. He will _not listen to this_.

“I’m going to bed,” he says, standing. “You can take my tray up when you take yours.”

He walks away, and he doesn’t turn back, even when Sungjong calls to him. 

 

 

 

Sungyeol actually does sleep well that night. He wakes to the sound of his alarm with the vague impression that his dreams were unpleasant but familiar, but he sets that aside and gets ready for the day.

It’s interminable, of course. He’d known it would be, but that doesn’t make it pass any faster. It’s the longest day of Sungyeol’s life, actually, longer by far than the days when he was waiting to see Myungsoo, though he hadn’t thought that possible till now. But he taps back into his ability to focus completely on work, and Sunggyu, who has been giving him narrow-eyed glares for the past few weeks, seems grumpily mollified by his behavior. Not that Sungyeol really cares.

After work, there’s dinner, during which he and Sungjong don’t say anything to each other. Sungyeol doesn’t even look at Sungjong, actually, though he can feel his friend’s eyes on him through the whole meal. But after he’s finished mechanically eating and he stands, Sungjong finally looks at him and says, “Good luck, hyung. I hope this works out for you.”

Sungyeol’s anger has melted away entirely over the past day. All he feels now for Sungjong is love mixed with a kind of mourning over all the ways he’s hurt him. He wishes he hadn’t had to. He really does. 

“I’m sorry I have to do this, Sungjong. I’m really sorry.”

“I know, hyung,” Sungjong says.

Sungyeol walks back to his room and lays down on the bed and goes over the plan in his head again.

And waits. Again.

 

 

 

It had been surprisingly easy to find all the blueprints of the ventilation systems. They’re preserved for the repair-servicers, of course, so that they can fix things that need fixing, so perhaps Sungyeol shouldn’t have been so surprised at the detail of the information available, but it had all been so perfect it was almost frightening. He knows exactly where to go and how to get there. He knows also, thanks to Sungjong’s book, how to manipulate the cameras in the corridors so that they run a loop of previous footage instead of capturing Sungyeol’s figure going down hallways and on elevators he has no reason to be on, especially in the middle of the night. The cameras are more for show than anything; Sungyeol doubts anyone watches them regularly. But they will definitely be checked tomorrow morning when they look into why a healthy administrator died suddenly. Sungyeol’s concoction mimics basic cardiac arrest—in fact, it _causes_ basic cardiac arrest and is thus completely unobtrusive. It also will break down completely and won’t show up in autopsy—Sungyeol is good enough at his job to be sure of that. That doesn’t mean they won’t investigate, though.

His fingers feel clumsy in the big gloves he’d brought from the lab, despite the fact that they’ve never felt anything but competent in those gloves before. Opening the vent and locating the pipe that goes to the education administrators’ level is so easy it’s almost laughable: it’s exactly where the blueprints said it would be. Getting the container and the syringe out of his pocket is actually more trouble; he fumbles and almost drops them. But it takes only a minute or two to open a valve and insert the gas and close it again. Only a minute or two for Sungyeol to commit murder.

He’d been familiar with the concept, of course, because of Sungjong. He hadn’t ever thought of it before they had a conversation about it—probably to most of the people around them the thought of taking another person’s life simply never arises. Sungyeol remembers a particularly annoying boy in in one of his classes when he was a child, a boy Sungyeol had wished just wouldn’t be there anymore. But that was a far cry from actually, intentionally ending someone’s life. 

When Sungjong had introduced him to the idea in one of his history lessons, he’d been appalled, hadn’t even wanted to think about it ever again, had been sure it was something that never happened anymore—it was too barbarian, too uncivilized. Nothing, Sungyeol had been sure, would ever make him consider something like that.

And now here he is, and when the idea had first formed in his mind, he hadn’t even hesitated. He doesn’t hesitate now.

He closes the vent and returns the empty syringe and container to his pocket, peeling off the gloves and shoving them in too. And then he leans his back against the wall, letting his head drop against the coolness, and pictures the molecules filling the patron’s apartment, the one with his big soft bed. It’s a foolish image: the gas is colorless and odorless and will break down completely within an hour or two. That’s the _point_. But Sungyeol can’t help but imagine anyway, a smoky gas creeping from the vent along the floor to wrap itself around the man’s neck.

Less satisfying is the thought of Myungsoo seeing it happen. Sungyeol had tried to time this late enough at night that they would both be asleep, but there’s no way to be certain, of course. What if the man is above Myungsoo, thrusting into him, and he suddenly goes stiff and cries out and clutches at his chest? Will Myungsoo be scared? Will he try to help him? Will he call for emergency medical care?

Or will it all go as Sungyeol hopes—Myungsoo and that man, lying asleep on a bed that’s too soft, while Sungyeol’s gas seeps into the room and steals the man’s life? Will Myungsoo wake up in the morning and try to wake the man up and be scared at how cold he is? He’ll call for help, of course, and people will rush into the room and cart away the body to be looked at and look around for any sign of foul play. They’ll probably briefly investigate Myungsoo. Sungyeol wishes he could spare him that—it will be scary for Myungsoo, of course—but they’ll clear him quickly enough when it’s clear he had nothing to do with it. 

And then he’ll be put back into the pool.

And then he’ll come back to Sungyeol.

Sungyeol’s legs feel very heavy and his knees creak as he walks back to his room.

 

 

 

Sungyeol had fancied that maybe gossip about the unexpected death of an important administrator would filter down to the professionals, but he doesn’t hear a word about it, which really shouldn’t be a surprise. Sungjong doesn’t say anything, just waits for Sungyeol’s abrupt nod, then looks away and eats silently. Two days pass, sludging by slowly, without any confirmation that his plan was successful. He could hack again into the system, find out with only a few keystrokes. But security will probably be tightened at least around the man’s files if not overall on the system, and Sungyeol isn’t going to risk that.

So it isn’t until Ellin comes that Sungyeol knows for sure. And he knows as soon as he walks into the room and she stands to greet him. She still looks shocked, neither bouncy with happiness nor animated with fury like Sungyeol half-expected, and all she says is, “It worked.”

Sungyeol rushes to her. “They sent him back?”

She nods slowly. “Yesterday. He looked even more blank than he did when they sent him there in the first place.”

“But he’s well? He’s okay?”

“Yes. They questioned him the first day, but I think it must have been really obvious that he didn’t know anything. They still can’t figure out why the patron would have a heart attack when he was so healthy, but they can’t find any evidence at all that it was anything but what it looked like. I think…I think you got away with it.” There’s wonder in her voice.

Sungyeol collapses onto his couch, his limbs feeling as insubstantial as air. “He’s free.”

Ellin doesn’t respond to that.

Sungyeol shakes himself after a moment, straightens to look at her. “Is he—you said he looked blank, is he okay now?”

“Yeah. It was like he thawed out. He’s back to himself now. A little quieter than before, maybe.”

Sungyeol hasn’t let himself think about Sungjong’s last objection, the thing Sungjong wanted him to consider. He’s absolutely refused to. But now it creeps up on him and he can’t stop the words from sliding out. “Do you think he’s happy to be back?”

Ellin looks at him for a long moment. “What are you asking me?”

“I mean—Sungjong says Minha says servicers dream of permanent placements. That they’re happy with any of them that are with decent people because they don’t like being in the pool. Do you think—do you think Myungsoo would rather be with—“ He can’t finish the question.

Ellin yanks thoughtfully on a long lock of hair. “I think Myungsoo would want a permanent placement normally, yeah. Anything to get away from the pool. But it’s not normal, is it? It’s different when you’re in love, isn’t it?”

Sungyeol can only hope so.

 

 

 

And then it’s another week to wait before he can see Myungsoo. Sungjong’s voice keeps bouncing around in Sungyeol’s head, asking whether this is what Myungsoo wants, asking whether it’s worth it when he’s only going to lose Myungsoo again.

Sungyeol doesn’t care if he loses him again. Life isn’t worth anything without Myungsoo, not even when he has Sungjong and Ellin. Yeah, there are things he likes about life: the satisfaction of a breakthrough at work, sex, the taste of certain foods, teasing Sungjong, needling Sunggyu, the way Niel listens to him like he has all the answers to everything, seeing Sungjong and Minha together, watching Ellin dance. Those things are good, maybe even what Sungjong would describe as beautiful. But none of them can compare to Myungsoo’s smile or the bob of his Adam’s apple when Sungyeol kisses his shoulder or the shine of his eyes when he masters another mathematical concept. Those things—those things are worth it, even if this ends with Sungyeol being disappeared. 

And it might. If Myungsoo gets a bad patron next time he’s permanently placed, Sungyeol will kill that one, too. They’ll find him, of course, find out what he’s done. And they’ll disappear him. 

But it won’t matter. It will be worth it, for a little more time with Myungsoo, and to know the people he loves are safe after he’s gone. Sungjong is right, of course, that there’s no way any of this can end with Sungyeol being happy, because there’s no way he can keep Myungsoo forever. But they’ll be happy and together for a little while. A little while is something.

Sungjong says this world doesn’t allow for choices, but Sungyeol has made his. 

 

 

 

Sungyeol isn’t sure how he makes it from the cafeteria back to his room the next Friday night. Part of him is wanting to run—race—fasterfasterfaster—and the other part is so weighed down by the heaviness of what’s going to happen next that his limbs feel like lead. But he gets there, finally, and he opens the door, and there’s someone waiting for him.

And it’s Myungsoo.

(He smiles.)

\--

… _Don’t_  
 _you know it, don’t you know_

_I love you_ , he said. He was  
shaking. He said,  
 _I love you_. There’s an art  
to everything. What I’ve  
done with this life,

what I’d meant not to do,  
or would have meant, maybe, had I  
understood, though I have  
no regrets. Not the broken but  
still flowering dogwood. Not

the honey locust, either. Not even  
the ghost walnut with its  
non-branches whose  
every shadow is memory,  
memory . . . As he said to me

once, _That’s all garbage_  
 _down the river, now_. Turning,  
but as the utterly lost—  
because addicted—do:  
resigned all over again. It

only looked, it—  
It must only look  
like leaving. There’s an art  
to everything. Even  
turning away. How

eventually even hunger  
can become a space  
to live in. How they made  
out of shamelessness something  
beautiful, for as long as they could.

\- From “Civilization” by Carl Phillips 

\--

FIN


End file.
